


Sophie’s Choice

by Magicath_420



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A healthy balance of fluff and whump, Complaint enough to be easy to follow, Everyone lives in the Tower 2012-style, Friendship is just as valid as romance, Love(TM), M/M, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vaguely compliant with canon right after Civil War but not really, non-compliant enough to be worth reading lmao, vaguely compliant with canon chronology in general but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 22,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21556825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magicath_420/pseuds/Magicath_420
Summary: When Steve is put in an impossible situation, he makes a split decision, and is forced to deal with the consequences.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Tony Stark & Peter Parker, Tony Stark/Steve Rogers
Comments: 35
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this one has been floating around in my head since I was about 14. I never really thought I’d write it down, but everything else I tried to write eventually morphed into this, so I figured I’d just see what I could do if I stopped beating around the bush. It’s probably the longest thing I’ve ever written, and definitely the most complex. There’s like, themes and literary devices and shit. I lowkey write with my favorite English teachers’ voices at the back of my mind (I hope you’re proud, Mrs. Von). Anyway, I ultimately wrote this because I think that the way our society talks about love is skewed towards sex (because sex sells better than anything else), and I had something different to say.

“So, this is a surprise party, right?” Natasha asked from the kitchen, where she was sitting on the counter, watching Bruce cook.

“Yes.” Tony answered, hanging streamers from the ceiling in the Iron Man suit. “We’ve been over this.”

“Well, stealth is my whole job, and from where I’m sitting...”

“You’re welcome to help, you know.”

“I did the balloons!”

“No,” Clint said, walking into the living room carrying a huge gift-wrapped box, “you _bought_ balloons. Totally different.”

“How much longer until Peter gets here?” Bucky asked. 

“He just texted Tony.” Steve answered, holding Tony’s phone. “He says he’s on his way.”

“Good.” Tony said. “Man, I can’t wait to see the look on his face.”

“Because he specifically asked you _not_ to throw him a birthday party?” Steve asked. 

Tony rolled his eyes. “He’s a teenager, babe. He has to say that. He’s going to love it.”

***

“Holy _crap_ , Mr. Stark. This is _awesome_.”

Peter’s eyes shone as he looked around the penthouse, covered floor to ceiling with streamers, confetti, balloons, and assorted superheroes. “Did you guys do all of this while I was at school?”

“Kid, I once built a sentient robot hell-bent on world domination _and_ destroyed it, in like a week. This was nothing.”

Peter laughed and hugged Tony, burying his face in the man’s shoulder. “Thank you. This is- it’s incredible.”

Tony smiled and wrapped his arms around Peter. “No problem, kiddo. Happy birthday.”

The rest of the night was a strange blur of teenagers and superheroes, all acting equally stupid in the high of the party. A group of Peter’s classmates set up a game of mock-beer pong on the balcony, while most of the others sat in a huge circle in the den and played Cards Against Humanity. Tony had to break up the sparring tournament the Young Avengers started when the X-Men started taking bets on it, and someone, somehow, had gotten icing on the ceiling. All in all, Tony was pretty damn proud of himself.

Later that evening, when the music was low and the general lull of conversation began to die down, Peter, Bucky, and Rhodey sat in the living room with the original six Avengers. The penthouse was mostly empty; pretty much everyone else had gone home. Tony leaned into Steve’s side comfortably, starting to feel drowsy from the few drinks he had had. Bucky sat on Steve’s other side, talking to him quietly. Steve laughed at something he said and hit his arm affectionately. Tony frowned.

Bucky was his and Steve’s oldest fight. _He’s killed hundreds of people, including_ my parents, Tony would say. _It wasn’t him,_ Steve would respond. _And he’s my oldest friend, and the only thing I have left from before the ice. I love him like a brother._

 _He sure doesn’t_ look _at you like a brother,_ Tony would bite back.

Tony knew that Bucky meant the world to Steve, and that Steve had mourned him and missed him every single day that he was thought to be dead. And it’s not like he was _worried_ ; he knew Steve was loyal to a fault and usually frustratingly moralist. So as much as it bothered him, he held his tongue. He held his tongue when Bucky slept on Steve’s couch (usually shirtless, for no apparent reason), and when their training sessions went long, and when they laughed at their little inside jokes like there was no one else in the room.

He even held his tongue tonight as Bucky put his hand on Steve’s shoulder and _casually_ dropped it down his arm in a manner that was, in Tony’s humble opinion, just left of friendly. A flash of angry jealousy seared red hot in Tony’s chest. He pushed it down. However, he also laced his fingers through Steve’s and lightly kissed his cheek, looking pointedly at Bucky when Steve couldn’t see him. Bucky saw Tony’s glare and lifted his chin slightly, holding his ground. 

“Alright, it’s getting late.” Rhodey announced, standing up and stretching. “I think I’m going to head home.”

“Hang on a second.” Tony untangled himself from Steve and stood as well. “Will you help me take down this banner first? I need someone else who can fly.”

Rhodey nodded and held out his arm to summon his suit. Tony did the same.

Tony first noticed something was wrong as he neared the ceiling. The suit’s movements were awkward and jerky, as if he’d never flown before. His initial thought was that he’d had a little too much to drink. But then he heard his blasters starting to charge, and just had enough time to think that he definitely wasn’t doing that, even if he was drunk, before...

“Rhodey, DUCK!” Tony yelled as his arm moved up and fired at the other man of its own accord. 

The blast narrowly missed Rhodey, blowing a hole through the penthouse wall to the open night air. Below, everyone jumped to their feet.

“Tony, what’s wrong?” Steve asked. 

“What the _hell_ , man?” Rhodey exclaimed. 

“It’s not me.” Tony said. “I’m not controlling the suit. Someone’s hacked it.”

The blasters began to charge again.

“RUN!” Tony yelled.

Below him, the crowd scattered. Natasha and Clint threw themselves behind the bar, breaking what seemed to be a slightly unnecessary number of glasses in the process. Steve ran down the hall to grab his shield, and Bucky followed. The fear in Steve’s eyes cut Tony deep, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it because his outstretched arm was now locked on Peter, who was jumping from wall to wall trying to take down the suit with his webs. 

“Pete, just get out of here!” Tony yelled at him. He couldn’t hurt Peter, Peter was a _kid_ , Peter looked up to him, Peter was- Peter was falling.

“No!” Tony screamed. The blast from his hand had hit the web that was suspending Peter from the ceiling and sent the boy flying full-speed into the brick wall above the fireplace. He crumpled to the ground and lay still.

Tony felt all of the blood in his veins turn to ice. A second later, Rhodey hit him from behind, hard, and knocked him to the ground. Apparently, that was enough to convince whoever was controlling the suit that they couldn’t fight off all of the avengers single-handedly, and it shot up, dodged Rhodey, and flew out of the penthouse into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve ran back into the living room, shield in hand, less than a minute after he had left. It had gone against every single one of his instincts to run away from the fight, but without his shield he was useless against Tony’s suit. 

He was too late though; Tony was gone, and the room was in shambles, smoke still rising from the huge hole in the penthouse wall. Broken glass littered the floor. Everyone was gathered in a semi-circle around the fireplace, and as Steve approached, he heard Bruce’s voice.

“-some space.” Bruce was saying. “He’s going to be alright, he just has a concussion and a broken wrist. With his accelerated healing factor, he’ll be back on his feet by morning. Sam, would you...?”

“I got him.” Steve said, stepping into the circle. Peter was lying on the ground, blinking slowly and looking semi-conscious, with Bruce kneeling by his head. 

“Do I need to take him to the medbay?” Steve asked. 

“No, no, his room will be fine. What’s most important right now is that he gets rest.”

Steve nodded and gently picked Peter up, bringing him to his bedroom in the tower. It was on the same floor as his and Tony’s.

When Steve returned to the living room, the rest of the avengers were gathered by the bar. They looked up as he approached. 

“We, um, we’ve got good news and bad news.” Nat said. 

“Good news?” Steve asked.

“We know who took Tony, and probably where he is.”

Steve sighed. “So that means the bad news is...”

Nat held up Tony’s phone, which he’d left on the bar an hour ago. The screen was all black, except for two big, white words: **HAIL HYDRA.**

***

Two days later, they finally picked up a signal from Tony’s suit. The GPS had been disabled, but the coms were still emitting radio waves, which they were able to track to a Stark Industries warehouse on Staten Island.

“Sam and I will go in the front.” Steve was saying as they crept up on the building. “Nat, you and Clint try to sneak up through the back without being seen. Everyone else: pick a window and give ‘em hell.”

The team nodded in agreement and peeled off to do as they were told. Steve looked at Sam. 

“Ready?” Sam asked.

Steve took a deep breath.

“Ready.” He answered.

They entered the building. 

The first two guards went down quick; the next four landed about one punch each. Then, down a hallway, up some stairs, and through about ten more agents, the team finally came to a dead-bolted steel door about 50 years newer than anything else in the building.

“Okay,” Steve said, waiting for everyone to regroup, “Bucky and I will go in first. We’re the closest to bulletproof. After we draw their fire, everybody else file in and try to overwhelm them in whatever way they’re least expecting it. Got it?”

The team nodded.

Steve looked at Bucky. He was staring at the door, hard. Steve put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up.

One would expect Steve to be able to read Bucky’s mind from a mile away by this point, but in reality, his best friend’s face was a mask. Bucky could feign anything; it was one of the things that had kept him alive this long. Even Steve would have only seen what Bucky wanted him to- if it weren’t for his eyes. Steve had learned to read Bucky before Bucky had learned to lie with his whole body, and even now, even after everything, he could still read Bucky’s eyes like Scripture. 

When Bucky looked him in the eyes today, Steve saw resentment. His own gaze saddened. 

He knew Bucky didn’t like Tony anymore than Tony liked him. He also knew how hard it was for Bucky to be here right now, in a HYDRA facility, surrounded by the people who had enslaved and tortured him for decades. And he knew that he was the only person on the planet that Bucky would do this for. 

Bucky saw Steve’s disappointment and dropped his gaze in a silent apology. Steve shook his head, rejecting Bucky’s guilt. He had a right to be resentful of risking his life for someone he didn’t even like. Steve squeezed his shoulder in gratitude for his loyalty. Bucky looked up through his lashes and gave Steve a small smile, understanding.

“Alright.” Steve said to the rest of the team. “On my count.”

He took a deep breath and burst into the room, followed closely by Bucky. They stopped after two steps: the room was completely empty, except for Tony, who was tied to a chair, bloody and unconscious. Steve held up a hand, signaling the rest of the team to wait while he crept forward slowly. 

One step. Two steps. Three steps. Fou-

There was a muffled grunt behind Steve, to his left. He turned around quickly to see a HYDRA agent holding Bucky in a headlock with a gun digging into his neck, right underneath his chin. Bucky slowly put his hands up and dropped his own gun. The agent- who had to be enhanced, given that he was 7 feet tall and seemingly more than a match for Bucky’s own enhanced strength- kicked it across the room.

“Captain.” Said a voice, calmly, from behind him. He spun back around to where Tony was tied up. Standing beside him was a similarly enhanced agent who hadn’t been there a second ago. The man picked up Bucky’s gun and aimed it directly at Tony’s head. “Let’s play a game.”


	3. Chapter 3

“In 30 seconds, one of us”- the man gestured between himself and the man holding Bucky- “pulls the trigger. You decide who. Anyone tries anything else, they both die.”

Steve was frozen in place. He couldn’t think, or plan, or fight, or move. The only thing he was processing was panic. Every alarm instinct in his body, both natural and enhanced, was blaring. He didn’t know what to do, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t _see_ , all he knew was pure, unadulterated fear... no... he couldn’t lose... he couldn’t lose _Bucky_...

And then Natasha dropped from the ceiling, landing on the agent threatening Tony, and took him down. The other agent flinched, giving Bucky the space to elbow him in the gut, and then the face. He took the man’s gun and hit him over the head with its butt, knocking him out. 

And just like that, it was over. The rest of the team filtered in, tying up the unconscious agents, checking for more hostiles, and flitting around Tony worriedly. Steve’s senses came back, and he unfroze. He and Bucky shared a quick glance- Bucky was shaken, but unharmed- and Steve ran to untie Tony, who was just starting to wake up. 

Tony insisted he was fine, threatened to sue anybody who tried to put him in an ambulance, and insisted that they drive back to the tower in the fleet of armored cars they came in- no helicopters. The team capitulated. But Tony, for all his bravado, still fell asleep on Steve’s shoulder on the ride home. 

Steve looked down at Tony as he slept, trying to process what had just happened. On some level, Steve thought, he wasn’t even surprised. Of course he loved Tony, and he’d die for the man, but when it came to Bucky... 

Bucky was home base. Bucky was what everything in Steve’s life was built on. Steve could go out, make new friends, find a new team, find love, and that was all great- but that was all what Steve _wanted_. Bucky was the only thing that Steve- bullied and beaten, orphaned at 18, ripped from everything he’d ever known, woken up in a new _century_ \- had ever allowed himself to _need_.

Steve wanted Tony in his life more than he’d ever wanted anything. If he died, Steve would probably live in grief forever- but he would _live_.

When they pulled up to the Tower, the press was waiting outside. 

“Shit.” Tony muttered. 

They stepped out of the car, Steve supporting most of Tony’s weight with one arm around his shoulders, and pushed through the crowd of reporters, doing their best to ignore the shouted questions. Bucky was one step behind them.

“Mr. Stark, how did HYDRA hack your suit?”

“Mr. Stark, what does this mean for the cybersecurity surrounding your autonomous suits on peacekeeping missions abroad?”

“Mr. Barnes, did you recognize the facility Stark was being kept in from your time with HYDRA?”

“Captain Rogers, who were you going to choose?”

Steve stopped in his tracks. He turned to face the reporter. 

“What did you just say?”

“The HYDRA agents posted a manifesto online minutes before they were apprehended, outlining the details of their plan. Obviously, you didn’t end up having to make the choice- but what if you did?”

“Steve, what is he talking about?” Tony asked.

“Nothing.” Steve said, turning back to face him. “Come on, let’s go upstairs. You need rest.”

“You know I’m not accepting ‘nothing’ as an answer, right?”

“Tony, please. _You need rest_. I’ll explain everything later, I promise.”

Tony reluctantly agreed, and allowed himself to be half-carried upstairs to the residential floors. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he was almost knocked over by a frantic hug from Peter, already babbling before the doors opened. 

“-you okay? They wouldn’t let me come on the mission to rescue you, even though I’ve been on HYDRA missions before and I’ve even been to _space_ but they said it was too dangerous and I said that I’m not a child and I’m 15 which is basically 17 and that’s the age that you can be tried as an adult in New York State so technically-”

“Breathe, kiddo.” Tony said calmly. “I’m gonna be just fine. What about you? They said you had a concussion.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I told Dr. Banner that I’m _fine_ , my head doesn’t even hurt and I’ve been sleeping well and I’m not even nauseous and I know that’s the worst symptom and the most common one so I don’t even see why-”

“Okay, okay, okay. It’s okay, buddy.”

Steve was looking pointedly at Tony, still supporting more than half of his weight. Tony rolled his eyes, but took the hint. 

“I have to go to bed now because these _squares_ think I need to ‘rest’ to ‘recover’ from all of the, what’s the word?”

“Torture?” Steve supplied.

“Oh, please. It was barely 48 hours, I’ve had worse hangovers. You’re scaring the kid.”

“I’m not scared.”

“So you are a kid, then? No objection on that one?” Tony said, walking away.

“I never said that!” 

“It’s in what you _don’t_ say, Pete. It’s always in what someone _doesn’t_ say.”


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky was leaning against the counter, holding a cup of coffee, when Steve walked into the kitchen. He poured himself a cup and leaned on the counter as well; they were shoulder-to-shoulder. Steve didn’t meet Bucky’s eyes.

“Did you tell him what happened?” Bucky asked after a second. 

“Not the... details. Not yet. He needs sleep.”

“And when he wakes up?”

Steve sighed.

“He’s gonna want an answer.” Bucky pressed, not unkindly. 

“And you don’t?”

Bucky shrugged. “I’m not gonna push. Either way, I mean... if it’s really him, I’m happy for you.”

Steve looked up at him, finally meeting his eyes, and, by God, Bucky was telling the _truth_. Steve felt a rush of affection for his best friend. He was struck by how entirely unselfish Bucky’s loyalty was: he was protective of Steve without being possessive; always willing to put his life on the line for him without worrying if Steve had his back or not. Bucky trusted Steve so deeply that he knew if there was ever a time Steve didn’t have his back, that something cosmic had shifted in the universe, and he loved Steve so completely that if the shift was positive, he _wanted_ that for him, no matter the cost to himself.

How could Steve ever choose anything else over that?

“Yesterday, I would have told him that I couldn’t even imagine having to make that choice, and in a situation where I had to, I’d probably just freeze.”

“You did freeze.”

“I did, but...”

Steve shook his head, tears coming to his eyes.

“Stevie.” Bucky only ever called him that when he was dead serious. When they were kids, and Steve would get asthma attacks after his inhaler was empty; when he first told Steve that he was enlisting; and when he beat the Soldier protocol for the last time. “It’s okay. We- me and Tony- are both safe, and we’re both right here. You don’t have to choose. Ever.”

Steve was quiet for a second, struggling through guilt and shame to give Bucky the truth.

“Yeah, but when I thought I did,” he finally managed, “...it wasn’t even hard, Buck.”

Bucky nodded, understanding. There was no room for false humility between them- he didn’t pretend not to know that Steve couldn’t have ever been so confident the other way. He was being quiet- being _gentle_ \- because he knew that Steve was being torn apart by guilt over how disloyal all of this was to Tony.

“You could lie.” Bucky said.

“He’d be able to tell. And that would only make it worse.”

Bucky hummed in sad agreement. 

Steve sighed and put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I’ll figure this out. I’m just... I’m really glad it’s still hypothetical.”

Bucky smiled (a real, genuine smile, which were rare for him since the war.)

“He’s gonna slit my throat in my sleep, isn’t he?”

And Steve laughed. A real, genuine laugh, which were rare for him since the war.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, Bucky was waiting for the elevator up to the gym; when it opened, Tony walked out.

“Barnes.”

“Stark.” Bucky returned. “How are you feeling?

“Oh, fine. What’s a few punches to a month with the Taliban?” 

Tony wasn’t smiling. He sounded angry.

“In fact, what’s a month with the Taliban to, what, 70 years killing women and children with Hydra?”

Bucky flinched like Tony had hit him; Bucky didn’t talk about the Soldier. No one did.

Tony took a step closer.

“You... talked to Steve.” Bucky said, holding his ground.

In general, Bucky was not a big fan of Tony. He found him to be arrogant and difficult to work with. On top of that, he was deeply offended that Tony thought he had feelings for Steve, who was more of a brother to him than any of his actual siblings, and always had been. Bucky had no patience for Tony’s jealousy; his relationship with Steve had nothing to do with Steve’s relationship with Tony, and if Tony really couldn’t see that, he wasn’t going to last long in Steve’s life, anyway. 

“What does he _see_ in you?” Tony growled.

“He doesn’t ‘see’ anything, Stark. I’m his _friend_.”

“Which puts you in _second_ place in his life, behind me. Or at least, it’s supposed to.”

“Jesus Christ, man. Who _raised_ you?”

“I’m supposed to be the most important thing in his life, Barnes. That’s how this _works_.”

“Maybe there’s a reason you’re not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bucky sighed. He had already overstepped his boundaries; no use stopping now. “Well for starters, why are you having this conversation with _me_? It has nothing to do with me, it’s-”

“It has everything to do with you.”

“Only if Steve is a _possession_ that I’ve somehow _taken_ from you! If he’s a human being that you’re in a relationship with, this is between you and _him_.”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Are you two even _friends_?”

“I don’t have to be his _friend_ , I _love_ him!”

Bucky took a breath and didn’t answer. This conversation had gotten out of hand; he felt like he was invading Steve’s privacy by talking about his relationship behind his back like this. At the same time, he wanted to take his best friend by the shoulders and shake him. What did he _see_ in this asshole?

“Talk to Steve, Stark.” He said, walking away.

“Don’t-”

“Talk. To. Steve.”


	6. Chapter 6

So, turns out, talking to Barnes didn’t make Tony feel any better. To be fair, he hadn’t _really_ been expecting it to. He was just venting frustration with the first bad decision that presented itself. But- as bad decisions tend to do- it had backfired. Now he was frustrated, angry, hurt- and _confused_. What the fuck was Barnes talking about? _He_ was Steve’s friend. Tony was Steve’s _significant other._ Those are two entirely separate things! That’s why they call it being “more than friends”. This is how relationships were supposed to work. Right?

Tony thought back to all the real, adult relationships he’d been around in his life. His parents hadn’t been “friends”; they didn’t kick back and get a beer together, or have any common interests, or even seem to particularly _like_ hanging out with each other. They were married! They’d made a commitment: they’d raise the kid, put food on the table, sleep in the same bed, and go to office Christmas parties together, because that’s what you _did_. No one wanted to do that stuff alone, so you found a woman to do it with. 

Now, obviously, _that_ wasn’t how he felt about Steve, he did _love_ him, but... he didn’t consider them to be _friends_. Steve wasn’t particularly funny, or fun to talk to- like, he was easy to talk to, but Tony didn’t love him because of how they _talked_ to each other. Tony wanted take to him to expensive restaurants, not Dave and fucking Busters. For God’s sakes, they were _adults_. They weren’t _friends_ , they were in a _relationship_. What was so wrong about that?

And what did he mean by saying that Tony was treating Steve like a possession? That was twisting his own words and actions into something ugly. Steve didn’t have to be a _possession_ for Tony to be _possessive_ of him. You were supposed to be possessive and protective of the people you love! A real man protects his partner and looks after them, making sure they’re taken care of. That didn’t mean Tony was _objectifying_ Steve; it meant that he instinctively wanted the man he loved to be safe, and was willing to do anything to ensure that.

Barnes was out of his mind, Tony decided. Just because he couldn’t see that his own “friendship” with Steve was just an ingrown adolescent crush that he’d repressed cause he hadn’t been able to admit it to himself in the _40s_ , didn’t mean he knew _anything_ about Tony and Steve’s relationship.

 _You know what, fuck it._ Tony thought. He had better things to think about. He’d promised Peter that they would spend the day in the lab working on the kid’s new suit. Tony was relieved to have something to take his mind off of the shit show that was his love life at the moment, and, honestly, he always looked forward to spending time with Peter. The boy’s easy energy and cheerful disposition was, God help him, _contagious_ , and even though the extent to which he looked up to Tony made the former war profiteer a little bit uncomfortable, he could use the ego boost right now.

***

“Mr. Stark, I- I think this is stuck.”

They’d been working in comfortable silence for a few hours now, and this was the first time Peter had asked him for help all day- the kid was a _genius_. 

“Let me see.” Tony said, holding out a hand. Peter handed over the mechanism he’d been struggling with. Tony looked at it for a minute, then hit it against the table twice. The pieces came unstuck. 

“Learned that at MIT.” He said with a wink, handing the pieces back to Peter.

Peter giggled. It made Tony smile.

“Sorry, that was- ignore me, I’m stupid.”

Tony’s smile dropped. He heard his father’s voice in his head. _It’s not quantum fucking physics, Anthony. It’s Algebra I. You’re_ fourteen _. I could’ve done this with my eyes closed when I was ten. Why do you have to be so fucking stupid?_

Sometimes was Tony was stressed, he still had nightmares about the way his father used to speak to him. It wasn’t the words themselves that hurt, not 40 years later; it was that Tony was still fighting to disbelieve them. Early childhood education is a bitch- when the same person who taught you the alphabet, and how to count to 10, and how the earth goes around the sun, teaches you that you’re worthless, you remember it. 

Inferiority flowed in Tony’s blood and hardened his bones. There’s no fixing those wounds in an adult, but Peter- Peter wasn’t done growing yet. There was still room for kindness in him- both for others, and for himself.

“On the contrary,” Tony said, “you’re a lot smarter than I am. Either of those pieces still going to work?”

“Um... no.” Peter answered sheepishly. 

“See? The smart thing would’ve been to ask for help, like you did. The stupid thing would have been to bang it against the table until it broke in order to look cool in front of a teenager.”

Peter laughed, and Tony’s smile grew back again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have opinions please leave me a comment!!!! If you wanna talk, come find me on tumblr (magicath-420)!!


	7. Chapter 7

The guilt was tearing Steve apart. The look on Tony’s face when Steve had... God. Steve was going to Hell for this one. The worst part was that even if he had the chance to change his answer, he knew he wouldn’t. Deep down he knew that if he had a thousand chances, he’d pick Buck every time. 

Overall, from the day Bucky fell off the train to the day Steve saw the Soldier’s mask fall off had been about a year to Steve. He didn’t remember 90% of it- the important stuff came back in flashes. The shock of pain when it finally sunk in that he’d never see Bucky again, worse than anything he’d ever felt; aiming the plane into the ice, unafraid, knowing it was physically impossible to be in any more pain than he was already; the disappointment of realizing he was alive again; the Battle of New York, and the way the survivor’s guilt got heavier and heavier with each new thing he survived. He hadn’t slept once that entire year (not an exaggeration- the serum had kept him alive). 

It wasn’t that Bucky was the only thing that made sense to him, it was that Bucky was the only thing that made the rest of the world make sense. But that didn’t mean Steve didn’t still love Tony deeply. It didn’t mean that making him cry didn’t make Steve sorely miss the ability to get blackout drunk. He didn’t know what to do; he felt like he was walking through a violent storm, blind and deaf, holding onto Tony with one hand and Bucky with the other as the winds tried to drag them away. He was sad, and confused, and ashamed, and the only coherent thought he had was to hold onto both of them for dear life.

It reminded Steve of the first time he’d ever lost a fight with Bucky. They’d been knocked down their whole lives, but the first time Steve and Bucky had ever lost a _real_ fight together was on a summer day when they were 19:

Steve was walking home from work at the factory. It was 8pm, and the sun was just starting to set on the hottest day of the year so far. The only thing Steve could think of was getting home so he could sit down and drink some water, as he hadn’t done either in over 12 hours. He was walking past the alley behind the moving picture theater when he heard Bucky’s voice.

“-weren’t hurting anyone. Just back off, Johnson. No one has to get hurt tonight.”

Bucky sounded more scared than Steve had ever heard him. Instantly primed for a fight, Steve crept up to the entrance of the alley. Inside, Bucky had his back to the wall, standing protectively in front of another boy their age from the neighborhood, facing Andy Johnson, the meanest kid on their high school football team (which was saying something). Johnson was wearing his police uniform; he had joined the force a month after graduation last year. The boy that Bucky was protecting was wearing red lipstick and holding onto Bucky’s arm with both hands; some of his lipstick was smeared around Bucky’s mouth. 

Johnson pulled out his nightstick. Bucky put his hands up to fight, but Johnson didn’t use the stick to hit him; he was just getting it out of the way so he could reach his radio.

“Third and Main, Officer Johnson requesting back up. Two fags, and one of them wants to fight. Copy.”

Steve watched all the blood drain out of Bucky’s face as at least five different voices responded “Copy” from the radio. Johnson smirked. 

“We’re gonna clean up this city one way or another, Barnes.”

“Run.” Bucky said to the other boy. 

“But-”

“Marty, _go_.” Bucky said again. Then he stepped forward and punched Johnson in the face. 

Marty ran. Johnson, recovering quickly, raised his nightstick over his head. Steve, seeing his chance, stepped up and grabbed it, pulling down hard. Johnson was knocked off balance and Bucky hit him in the gut. When he doubled over, Steve brought the nightstick down on his back with a resounding _crack_. Johnson crumpled to the ground and lay still. 

Bucky looked up at Steve. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

“I was walking by, heard your voice. Figured you could use a hand.”

A second passed. 

“I was- I was going to tell you. I just didn’t really know how.”

“What, that you’re hooking up with my ex-boyfriend?”

Bucky looked away guiltily. 

“Dude, I went steady with him for like a month when we were 15. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, but... still. I’m sorry.”

Steve clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I get it: he was safe, you knew for sure he was one of us. And he doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Bucky met his eyes. An unspoken _You, on the other hand..._ passed between them, and Bucky understood. Bucky always understood. 

“Johnson called for backup.” Bucky said. The fear Steve had heard before was back in his voice.

“We can take ‘em.”

“They’re _cops_ now, Steve.”

Steve sighed. He knew what Bucky meant: the same guys that had been giving them shit their entire lives wore uniforms for it now. They had been promoted from bullies to state-mandated oppressors. 

“Yeah. But we can take it.”

Bucky swallowed. They could hear footsteps on the street outside. 

“You with me?” Steve asked. It wasn’t a question; it was a pep talk.

“Always.” Bucky answered. He put his hands up again. 

The world they lived in, the slums of Brooklyn at the height of what’s now called The Great Depression, treated violence as a currency: everyone, even the kids, knew that they were either giving it or taking it. More than half the men Steve and Bucky knew worked for the mob, and everyone at school had known a different runaway. The kids at school beat on other kids for being small because their fathers beat on them and their mothers for the same reason. The teachers smacked them if they misbehaved; the cops beat them for loving each other. There was no one to protect them except for themselves and, for Steve and Bucky, each other. They grew up depending on each other for physical safety, and everything else about their relationship grew on the absolute trust and undying loyalty that only formed in the eye of a storm. Steve and Bucky were war buddies long before Hitler failed out of art school. 

That night was the closest Steve had ever come to dying on American soil. And Bucky was by his side the whole time. Bucky was always by his side; it was who they were, both of them.

When Steve woke up in the future, he was lost, not only in a haze of grief, but in an incomprehensibly new world. There were documentaries about him, playing on screens that sat in living rooms or could be carried around in your pocket. Historians dug until they found old, buried records of his arrests for homosexuality that SHIELD itself had tried to destroy, and then _celebrated_ them. A black man was president, and a woman was his Secretary of State. And the pinnacle of this new world was a billionaire wrapped in a flying suit of iron who didn’t seem to appreciate the miracle of Steve’s resurrection as much as the rest of the world did.

When they first met, Tony had been hostile, unwilling to be showed up as leader and celebrity. That hostility had eventually became sexual tension, which became a sexual relationship, which became a real relationship. The press leaked a few compromising photos, and their relationship became a public role as well. Steve enjoyed the newfound freedom to be out, and the responsibility of being a role model and symbol of hope for his community, which was much larger and more visible now than it had been in the 40s. He enjoyed spending time with Tony; it was nice to have someone by his side in meetings and boring, fancy parties with diplomats and movie stars. He liked coming home to the same man every night, something he never thought would be possible before the ice. Most of all, he felt fulfilled by having a person to love like this and be a loyal partner to. It made him happy when Tony was happy, and he spent all day thinking about him. Their relationship was Steve’s favorite part of his new life as Captain America in the 21st century. 

The idea of having to choose between Bucky and Tony was terrifying to him. All he wanted was to have both of them in his life, and he didn’t see why that was so wrong. 


	8. Chapter 8

It was already 2am when Tony finally convinced Peter that he needed sleep more than he needed to finish working on his suit _right this second_. Teenagers, man. It was far too late for Tony to even consider putting him on a subway back to Queens, even with all his enhanced senses and strength. Little known fact: crack actually gives you the exact same batshit crazy edge in a fight as mutant spider powers do. 

Peter crashed in his room in the Tower for the night. Now, it wasn’t really “his room”. The Tower had about 25 guest rooms on the lower floors that various team members used when they came to visit. There were usually about 5-10 occupied at any given time, less around the holidays, more in times of crisis. Technically, only Steve and Tony lived here full time (although Barnes had been “crashing” in the room right under the roof for a few months now, which was _supposed_ to be reserved for family, and Tony was starting to think he was lying about apartment hunting). However, Peter had been staying over so often that he’d started keeping clothes and a phone charger in one of the guest rooms, and eventually it had just been easier to move him into the extra room on Steve and Tony’s floor to avoid arguments from Shuri about him “hogging the good room”. The kid was ecstatic about it; he hung up a _poster_.

(All the guest rooms were identical, by the way.)

( _Teenagers, man_.)

So now when Peter wanted to work on his suit after school, or train with the other team members, or just show off on Snapchat, he crashed at the Tower for the night. Tony didn’t mind, he liked having the kid around. Without Tony, Peter would still be swinging around his own neighborhood, stopping unarmed teenage pickpockets; Tony had sent him to another _planet_ (indirectly, but still). Tony felt responsible for the kid’s safety now, and he always slept a little easier with the Brooklyn 99 theme bleeding through the quiet from down the hall.

And, if Tony was being honest, he _really_ liked being a mentor. It’s not just that Peter was brilliant, and looked up to him. There was something in teaching a kid about something you have a passion for, and seeing a spark light up behind their eyes, that satisfies some deep human longing to foster the next generation. He felt his love for engineering bubble in him as he watched the same love grow up in Peter, and his care for the kid grew, too, especially as they got more and more invested in each other’s projects.

Peter and Tony spent every weekend elbow-to-elbow in the lab, heads bent low over calculus equations scribbled on pizza boxes, Tony talking with a pencil held between his teeth, Peter quiet in concentration. The first time Peter had legitimately helped Tony finish a repair he was stuck on, with an idea he would never have come up with on his own, it had stopped him in his tracks. Today, it was a regular occurrence. Tony had had to rearrange his ego a little bit to put a 15 year old on his own level, but it wasn’t a shift he had minded. He glowed with pride when the kid showed him up in the lab. Last night, Peter had asked for his help on an issue he was having with his suit. and they had pulled an all-nighter to solve it _together_. And this morning, in a deli down the block, over egg sandwiches and about 15 minutes of sleep between them, Tony had given the kid a key card that opened every room in the Tower.

Tony had grown up being systematically ignored by his father. Nothing he did was ever good enough, nothing he said was ever smart enough, no award he won was ever impressive enough. Howard had missed his high school graduation to see a Yankees game (with his _season_. _pass_.) All Tony had wanted when he was Peter’s age was the tiniest scrap of approval from the man he looked up to, and he was adamant that Peter would never feel that desperation. 

As mentor, Tony could make sure Peter felt smart, and capable, and _seen_ for his exceptional talent. Tony had never felt that way for a day in his life, but as he watched that specific kind of confidence grow in this kid, he could almost, almost, _almost_ start to believe in his own ability. And while that feeling came and went, there was one thing that was 100% clear since he’d met Peter: no kid deserved to be treated the way that Howard had treated him. Peter made Tony feel, for the first time in his life, that everything he’d been through was not his fault, and never had been.

Tonight, Tony had been dreading going to bed. Working with Peter had taken his mind off of things, but now that the kid was asleep, Tony couldn’t avoid Steve any longer.

Tony slipped quietly into their room. Steve was already asleep. Tony breathed a silent sigh of relief, and instantly felt guilty about it. 

He was sick of being angry with Steve. He didn’t even want to talk about it anymore. One of the things he loved most about this relationship in general was how _easy_ it was. It was steady, and quiet, and kind, and sustaining. There was no yelling or fighting, they just... were. He loved having Steve by his side. He loved having Steve _on_ his side. He loved spending all day thinking about him. They respected each other, understood each other, _chose_ each other. 

Or at least, that’s what Tony had thought. Steve hadn’t chosen him when he was facing death. What could be more critical or important than when Tony was facing death? Tony understood that Steve and Bucky always had to be loyal to each other, and that was their whole thing as soldiers, but he had always assumed that his own role as partner would supersede Bucky’s role as comrade. Without that hierarchy, everything else about his relationship with Steve seemed trivial. If Tony wasn’t Steve’s first priority, what was the point? Why be in a relationship where his only role was to lose to the latest failure of Soviet biomedical engineering?

As Tony laid down to sleep, he tried to put himself in Steve’s shoes. Was there anyone he would pick over Steve, if he was put in the same position? Was there anyone he felt obligated to protect, more than he felt obligated to make Steve his first priority? As he fell asleep, his thoughts drifted from the warmth and weight of the man laying next to him... he thought of big, mutant Hydra agents with guns... cold, dark rooms... how to fix the suit so it could never be hacked like that again... working on it in the lab, side-by-side with Peter while the kid rambled about school... the way the kid looked at him... the new way Tony thought of his whole life, of _himself_ , since he’d met Peter...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything in this chapter about mentoring a kid (“And, if Tony was being honest”... “a key card that opened every room in the Tower”) is dedicated to Ella, the smartest 8 year old I’ve ever met. You’re the best, kiddo. May you never, ever, ever, ever find this ao3 account.
> 
> Also, fun fact, that thing about crack is true. (Source: my dad was a cop in Manhattan in the 90s).
> 
> Please keep leaving comments! They make my day. If I haven’t responded to you, it’s because that in order to have an intelligent conversation about whatever you said, I would have to spoil the rest of the plot. But I see what you’re all saying, and it’s making me smile that you care!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything I know about irondad I learned from @losingmymindtonight. Notice me senpai.

The elevator dinged and Tony looked up in surprise. Steve was out on a mission with Nat and Clint, Sam was at his day job at Veteran’s Affairs, and Tony had been under the impression that he would have the Tower to himself all week. He was even more surprised when Peter walked out of the elevator.

“It’s Monday.” Tony said in lieu of a greeting. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Snow day!” Peter said brightly. “May still had to go to work, though, and all my friends are trapped inside cause a lot of the buses aren’t running, so I swung over here. We don’t have to, like, hang out, if you’re busy, I just wanted to use the lab cause I had this great idea for my suit based on this thing that Batman can do-”

Peter rambled on with all of his usual bright-eyed excitement. Tony waited for him to finish before he chimed in.

“That’s genius, kiddo.” he said, meaning it. “But not today. Grab your coat.”

“I- what?”

“It’s a snow day, Peter. A city-wide holiday. You and your fellow New Yorkers have eight extra hours to fill with children’s shenanigans while your guardians are at work and all the adults are inside. You can’t spend it doing anything you would normally do.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Wow, Mr. Stark, thanks for adult-splaining snow days to me.”

“That’s not a word. Adults should be explaining things to you, that’s how being a child works.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” Peter asked, dutifully following Tony to the elevator.

“We’re going to expand your horizons.” 

***

“ _This_ is your idea of ‘shenanigans’?”

“I may have abandoned ‘shenanigans’ for ‘horizons’.” Tony admitted, as he and Peter stood at the towering, ornate entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

“Is it even open?”

“Everything’s open when you’re rich.”

Sure enough, as Tony spoke, a man in a black suit with an earpiece opened the doors from the inside.

“Mr. Stark.” the man said. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you, Kevin. How’s Grace?”

“She’s good; totally healthy, no complications. We’re due in June.”

“That’s wonderful. Say hi to her for me.”

The man smiled warmly. “Will do.”

Tony led Peter inside. When he turned to ask Peter what he wanted to see first, he found the boy already looking at him, warm admiration in his eyes. 

Tony smiled back at him. “Have you ever been here before?”

Peter shook his head. “No, but it’s not that. I was just thinking of how cool this is, that we’re in the _MET_ even though it’s closed, and just like-” Peter blushed. “I just- I want to be like this when I grow up. I want to be so kind to so many people that I can unlock, like, side quests to life.”

A warm glow flooded Tony from his navel down to his toes. He didn’t think anything could make up for all the damage he’d done- from New York to Ultron to Titan- but it was nice to live in Peter’s world, where Tony was kind and that was all that mattered. Even if it was just for a minute. 

“Well, where do you want to go first?” Tony asked. 

“I don’t know. You pick. Something that’ll convince me that art isn’t boring.”

They walked up the big staircase right past the lobby as Tony rolled his eyes. “Teenagers.” He mumbled in mock exasperation.

As they made their way through the museum, Tony saw that Peter gravitated more to the architecture than the paintings. He could tell Peter was just following his lead when it came to standing in front of the paintings, even when Tony was pointing out the emotion and storytelling that he saw in them, but the kid’s eyes _shone_ when they reached The Temple of Dendur. 

“Everything in here is from Ancient Egypt.” Tony was saying, “And they had architects design all the windows and reflecting pools so that the lighting is almost exactly the same as it would’ve been back then.”

Peter stopped in front of the first temple entrance, mesmerized. 

“Woah.” he breathed.

Tony stood back and watched him curiously. It was a nice arch, he guessed, but compared to the paintings they had seen, it was a little bit plain. It pretty much looked like every other building in the museum to Tony. Clearly, Peter saw something different though, because he was gazing up at it with a reverence Tony had never seen on his face before.

“You really like this one.” Tony said quietly, a hint of question in his voice.

“Yeah.” Peter breathed. “I mean, all the paintings we saw were nice, but all those people knew that they were creating things that would go in museums or galleries. They might not have known just how famous they would be, but, like, that was always the end goal, you know? But _this_ ,” he took a deep breath and shook his head in awe. “People _used_ this. Thousands of years ago in a society we can never fully understand, people walked through this thing _every day_. Children played around it, people rushed through because they were late to services worshipping gods we don’t even know the _names_ of.”

Peter turned to Tony. “This one’s special because it’s ordinary. It was just a regular part of people’s lives once.”

Tony looked at Peter, slowly digesting what he said. Once again, the kid had him speechless. He was so fucking _smart_ , but not just because he was good at math and science, but because of stuff like that. He saw the world so _honestly_ , and that’s what made him a genius, but he also saw _beauty_ in that picture. That eye for humanity was what made him- well, so many things. But mostly, fundamentally, it made him Peter.

Tony didn’t even know it was possible to enjoy spending time with a kid this much. He did something he’d never done before- he put his arm around Peter’s shoulders and pulled him in tight.

Tony and Peter stood there in Ancient Egypt for a while, snow falling heavily outside and reflecting sunlight that danced across the walls. It was quiet, and peaceful, and warm, and Tony felt something shift inside of him that he knew couldn’t ever be reversed.

Eventually, Tony and Peter made their way back to the Tower. Peter sat on the counter while Tony made dinner and regaled him with stories of his most PG-13 teenage antics, and Peter told him about how the cheerleaders had gotten homecoming cancelled in his freshman year. Tony was prepared to humor the kid, but he found that he didn’t have to. He found that he was genuinely interested in everything Peter had to say.

Peter went home that night and Tony slept better than he had in a month. The rest of the week passed slowly, with Tony working in the lab and keeping Stark Industries running smoothly, enjoying the time to himself while Steve was out on assignment, but also feeling, a little bit, like something was missing. Tony was so ardently looking forward to seeing Peter when the weekend rolled around that he often found himself wondering about little things, like what Peter would say about Tony’s latest updates to the Iron Man suit, or how the robotics team’s student leader election had turned out.

Peter showed up around 7 on Friday, carrying a pizza box. “Hey!” he said. “Ned and I got pizza after decathlon practice. I brought you one of those salad slices that you like.”

Tony was touched by the gesture. Peter, the broke teenager, thought to buy _him_ , the adult billionaire, a meal, just cause he knew Tony liked it and that he’d see him soon. 

“Wow, thank you, sport.”

Peter made a face. “Ugh, don’t call me sport. I’m too queer for sports.”

“Being Spider-Man is kind of like a sport.”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s a secret.”

Tony laughed. Not for the first time, he wondered how he had gotten so lucky to find this kid and be in his life like this. 

Tony and Peter worked in the lab all night. Between intense calculus, Peter told Tony stories of the drama unfolding between his chemistry teacher and his English teacher, who all the kids thought were secretly dating, and Tony laughed and theorized along with him. Around 2am, he insisted they take a break. Peter whined and resisted, so Tony slung an arm over his shoulders and half-dragged him down the hall.

“Where are we going?” Peter asked.

“Diner. I haven’t fed you since you got here.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Aren’t _you_?”

Peter shrugged. “Spiders are nocturnal.”

“Iron never sleeps.”

“That’s a terrible joke, Mr. Stark, it doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Respect your elders.”

At the diner, Peter got a double bacon cheeseburger and a milkshake. He was adorably excited about it, and Tony blew a straw wrapper at him.

It was a quiet, simple moment when Tony realized he loved Peter like he was his son. Some combination of the trip to the MET on Monday, having had missed him all week and the late hour they were both feeling built up in Tony and it all just felt right. _Tony_ felt right. He felt warm and whole, and the more he thought about it, the more it was absolutely undeniable. He loved the loopy, smiling teenager sitting across from him in the booth.

Tony left a $100 tip on their $20 check and walked back across the street with Peter at his side. The air was sharp and cold, and the snow sparkled in the streetlights. Peter had pen on his face, and everything felt like it was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two kids that I love that I can’t see because of COVID. Writers can have a little self-insert, as a treat.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that anyone is actually waiting for updates or paying attention but I took a brief break from writing because of some suuuper intense depression but I have NOT abandoned this shitshow. I’m not even close to finished with this fic, I never shut up and that’s all your guys’ problem now.

By now, things had pretty much gone back to normal between Steve and himself. Tony forgave Steve to avoid having to be mad at him anymore, and kept his private thoughts and questions about their relationship to himself. He felt as if he was missing something, no matter how many times he went over the problem. His relationship with Steve was _good_. It was _healthy_. It made him happy. The idea of breaking up with him was depressing, and laborious; so many of the things he looked forward to in his day-to-day life involved Steve. Without him, everything seemed empty, lonely, _gray_. 

But at the same time, Tony now had confirmation of what he’d always suspected: he wasn’t the most important thing in Steve’s life. That should make their relationship unhealthy, painful, one-sided, but... somehow it didn’t. What was Tony missing in the big picture? 

“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Stark.” Peter said, stepping out of the elevator and snapping Tony out of his musings. “There was a delay on the subway. Did the meeting start yet?”

“We’re waiting for you.” Tony answered, ruffling the kid’s hair as they fell into step towards the conference room. 

Peter’s eyes went wide. “ _All_ of the Avengers are waiting for _me_ to start the meeting?”

“Well, technically they’re waiting for me. But I was waiting for you.”

“ _Cool_.” Peter breathed.

They walked into the conference room where the rest of the team was already sitting down. 

“Nice of you to join us.” Nat remarked sarcastically. 

“There was a delay on the subway.” Tony quipped back at her, shooting Peter a wink as she rolled her eyes. 

“Alright, let’s get started.” Bruce said, standing up in front of the room. He launched into about half an hour of statistics on the new HYDRA cell that was developing in Staten Island, running a human trafficking ring out of abandoned storefronts. Apparently, they’d captured a few SHIELD agents who had managed to get in touch with their superiors before they died, but only in symbols and sentence fragments. To take HYDRA down, SHIELD needed real intelligence. 

“So it sounds like they need spies.” Rhodey was saying. “What are the rest of us doing here?”

“Well, it’s about the kind of spies we need.” Bruce said. “The political prisoners are kept in damp, unheated basement cells. And because it’s January, that means we can’t just send anybody. Autopsy reports show all the captured SHIELD agents froze to death, so if we send Romanoff and Barton, they most likely won’t survive either.”

“So who _can_ we send?” Steve asked. 

Bruce hesitated, looking at Steve uncomfortably.

“A biologically enhanced super solider?” Tony suggested. 

Steve nodded. “I’d be more than willing to-”

“But everyone knows Captain America.” Clint interrupted. “He’s a celebrity, he can’t be a _spy_.”

“Right,” Bruce said. “Which is why the best option would be... well... a person with the same abilities... but none of the fame...”

There was a moment of tense silence. 

“You want to use Bucky?” Steve asked. 

Bruce nodded timidly. The rest of the table looked at Steve. Steve looked at Bucky. 

Bucky nodded. “I’ll do it.” 

“Wait.” Steve said sharply. “You want to send him into a HYDRA base, _alone_ , to-”

“He won’t be alone.” Bruce said quickly. 

“But no one else has their powers.” Tony said. 

“Not exactly, but.. well...”

“But what?” 

Bruce looked like he was struggling to find the right words. 

“Spiders are cold-blooded.” Peter perked up, with the air of being the only student in the class to answer the teacher’s question correctly. 

“What?” Tony asked. 

“Spiders. They can’t freeze to death. _I_ can’t freeze to death. I can go on the mission!”

“That’s not what he meant.”

“Actually, that’s... exactly what I meant.” Bruce said apologetically. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Tony asked again. 

“I’ll do it.” said Peter, imitating Bucky’s more serious tone, despite still looking like he just got picked first in gym class. 

Which Peter had _had_ today, by the way. Because he was a _child_. 

“We’re not sending a _teenager_ into a _human trafficking cell_ , Banner.”

“It’s the only way.”

“Bullshit.”

“Tony.” Natasha said gently. “Bruce is right.”

“That’s-”

“Why else would SHIELD have called us?” she continued. “If a human being could do this job, it would be done already.”

“They _are_ human beings.” said Tony and Steve in unison. Tony looked at Steve for a second, seeing his own fear mirrored in his partner’s eyes. 

“Right.” Natasha corrected. “Unenhanced, I should have said.”

“It’s not up to you two.” Bruce said. “All due respect. This cell is moving hundreds of young girls every week. If there’s anything that any of us can do to help, it’s our duty as heroes to do whatever that may be. I think that Bucky and Peter would agree with me.”

“I do.” Peter said quickly. 

“I do.” said Bucky. 

Tony looked at Peter for a second, then at Steve.

Steve looked back at him, and for the first time since Staten Island it felt like they were on the same page.

“I want eyes and ears on them at all times.” Tony said finally. 

“And an extraction team standing by, 24/7.” Steve added. 

“Done.” Bruce said. “I’ll call Fury. Tony, you go with Nat, see if you can access HYDRA’s cameras. If not, we’ll find a way to bug Peter and Bucky personally.”

“I’ll scope the place out, develop some exit strategies.” Clint said. 

“I’ll go with Barton.” Steve said. 

As everyone got up to move, Tony caught Steve’s eye again. He had that unmovable, no-compromise, stonewalled look in his eye that Tony dreaded going up against. Only this time, Tony felt the same stubbornness in his own stance; and he knew that they were finally together again in the only way that mattered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited this while watching Impractical Jokers so if you notice any typos keep it to yourself


	11. Chapter 11

For the next four weeks, the team worked tirelessly to ensure Peter and Bucky’s safety. Tony engineered coms the size of a poppy seed that lay just inside the cartilage of their ears; the device was impossible to find if you didn’t already know it was there, and it allowed the team to both talk to them and hear everything that they would hear. Clint pulled more than 80 hours of surveillance per week, developing three different exit strategies and even a partial guard schedule. Steve and Sam built quick makeshift replicas of the HYDRA building in the Tower’s gym, and Nat ran everyone else through what felt like hundreds of drills on it. 

And in the middle of it all, Steve and Tony were together again. They were at their best, working as a team for the most important mission either of them had ever seen. They started staying up all night, sometimes strategizing, sometimes making love, sometimes just talking; always sleeping til noon. Steve talked more about Bucky than Tony had ever heard him do before, and Tony sometimes forgot to hate it. He had missed this... _oneness_ that he and Steve had always had before Staten Island. Just being together felt nourishing to Tony now, and it was a feeling he never wanted to let go. He never wanted anything or anyone else but Steve, in all his righteousness and slow, steady hands that felt like coming home. 

It was a strange dichotomy. Some nights, Tony locked himself in the bathroom and cried from the stress of the mission hanging over his head. Others, he and Steve slow danced in the kitchen by the light of the refrigerator, laughing into each other’s necks and pressing little kisses to fingertips in private moments. On these nights, Tony would close his eyes tight and try to memorize everything, the way Steve’s hands felt in his, the way he smelled, the way the light made his eyes sparkle; he wanted to freeze time and hold onto the peace and contentment he felt in these moments forever. 

But nothing lasts forever. 

***

The night before Peter and Bucky left, Tony took Peter out to dinner and dropped him off at his aunt’s house. Steve spent the evening with Bucky, drinking Asgardian beers out of paper bags and wandering around the city the way they did when they were kids.

“It’s so _bright_ now.” Bucky was saying. “If you didn’t look up, you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell it was night.”

“It’s unnatural.” Steve agreed easily.

When they were alone, they spent huge amounts of time on the little stuff that was different in the future. Everyone else, in spite of their patience and understanding, started to get sick of conversations about the trees that lined the highway and the taste of bananas, but Bucky always got exactly what Steve meant, and vice versa.

“Even the back alleys. Look! Where do degenerate teenagers even go to make out these days?” 

“It’s downright un-American.” Steve said. 

“It is!” Bucky exclaimed. “And you’re _Captain_ America! You should do something about it!”

Steve laughed. “Imagine the headlines: Captain America and trusty sidekick spotted drunk, smashing streetlights in Midtown.”

Bucky laughed with him and shook his head.

“Man, I still can’t believe I ended up as _your_ sidekick. I mean, they know I could totally kick your ass, right?” 

“Who?”

“ _Them_.” Bucky said, gesturing vaguely in front of himself. “The news, the team, the bad guys! Everyone needs to know.”

He stepped in front of a woman passing by them in the opposite direction. “Excuse me, m’am. That’s Steve, he’s Captain America.”

The woman looked up in surprise. “Oh my God, you’re Captain America.”

“Yes, yes. I just said that.” Bucky said. “I could kick his ass, okay?”

“Uh” said the woman, bewildered.

“Ignore him.” Steve said, pulling on Bucky’s arm and still laughing. “Sorry to disturb you. Enjoy your evening, m’am.”

“I could!” Bucky insisted.

“I know, Buck. I know.”

Bucky sighed and slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders. Steve leaned into him.

“I can’t believe we ended up heroes.” He said after a minute.

“Two punching bag kids from the slums.” Steve agreed quietly. “Grew up calculating which kids from school wouldn’t go hungry if we snuck the lunch money out of their pockets to feed ourselves for the night.”

“Now we’re living in a penthouse, watching moving pictures about ourselves on computers that fit in our pockets.”

“And I’m too famous to have your back on your most dangerous mission yet.”

Bucky looked over at Steve, who was looking at the ground.

“Is that what’s been bothering you lately?” Bucky asked him quietly.

“How hasn’t it been bothering _you_? I hate going into battle alone.”

“I won’t be alone, I’ll be with the spider kid.”

“More of a liability than a real partner.” Steve muttered.

“And besides, you _will_ have my back. You’ll just have to do it from base.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Maybe not in our day. But with all the surveillance you guys have set up over the past couple of weeks? You’re gonna have eyes and ears on us 24/7, you said it yourself.”

Steve still didn’t seem convinced.

“Besides, if shit starts to go south, you can do a hell of a lot more to help from an outside command center than from the cell next door.”

“I- I actually hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Bucky chuckled. “Always so concerned with honor. Not everything can be solved with a frontal assault and a catchy one-liner, pal.”

“Oh, shut up.” Steve said, shoving him a little, and smiling.

They were quiet for a minute while they walked back to the Tower.

“I’m not worried about you having my back, Stevie.” Bucky said finally. “It’s not really something that you _do_ , it’s kinda just... who you are. Who _we_ are.”

***

“Got your bag?” Tony asked as Happy pulled the car up in front of Peter’s house in Queens.

“In the trunk.” Peter mumbled. He was fidgeting with the strings on his hoodie and hadn’t looked up since they left the diner.

“Happy, would you mind bringing that up to his aunt for us? We’ll meet you inside.” Tony said, sensing that Peter needed a minute.

Happy obliged.

Tony scooted over closer to Peter and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay to be scared, you know.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Really? Cause I’m terrified.”

Peter looked up, finally.

“How come you’re scared?” he asked, voice a little wobbly.

 _God_. Tony thought. _He looks so young_.

“Because you’re a _kid_. And when you’re with the team, I’m responsible for you, and your safety. And tomorrow I’m sending you and your safety into a human trafficking ring with nothing but a microphone and the Russian spy who’s married to my boyfriend. So yeah, I’m pretty fucking scared. But you know what?”

“What?” Peter asked, with the very beginning of a small smile.

“I’m also an engineer. And more importantly, I’m a fucking billionaire. Which means that I’ve got tech in and around that building that the United States military doesn’t even know exists yet, and I’m going to use it to get you in, through, and out of there safely.”

He moved his hand up to Peter’s neck and looked him dead in the eyes.

“Promise.”

Peter looked at him for a second, then burst into tears. Tony pulled him into his chest. He felt a surge of protectiveness rise up in him, stronger than anything else he’d ever felt, and he knew as well as he knew his own name that nothing would ever touch a hair on Peter’s head as long as Tony was alive to gently brush it back into place.

***

“Can you both hear me?” 

Peter and Bucky, in Staten Island, nodded.

“Good.” Tony said, watching them through the hacked security feed. “Alright, so once you pass the sign to the bodega, we won’t have eyes on you until you’re in the HYDRA cell.”

“You both remember the plan?” Steve asked, sitting next to Tony in front of the huge monitors they had set up on the main floor of the Tower.

“Yes. Go in, get captured. It definitely required the two hour explanation you gave us this morning.” answered Bucky, rolling his eyes (Tony assumed; the camera wasn’t _that_ good.)

“Same snarky response from you, Parker?” Tony asked.

“I would’ve said ‘45 minutes ago’ instead of ‘this morning’, but basically, yeah.”

“Good.” Tony said. He looked at the main screen to his left, in between Steve and himself. It showed the feed from the HYDRA security camera in a (currently empty) cell. The next time Tony had eyes on his- on Peter, the kid would be in there. There was no bench, no windows, no beds, not even a finished _floor_. Just an empty, dark room lit by a single light bulb hanging by a string from the ceiling, and a dirt floor. Tony was cold just looking at it.

Sending that kid in there with no suit, no tech, no _nothing_ went against every instinct Tony had. If he thought about it too long, it became hard to breathe. He found himself transfixed with the thought of Peter’s smile, his laugh, his boundless energy. There was just something in the way the kid moved, the way he tilted his head when he asked Tony a question about engineering, the way he slurred his words when he was tired, that was sacred to Tony. Peter was different. He was untouchable, he was innocence and optimism personified, he was everything a child- everything a person should be. The idea that Tony was sending him into a den where all the worst things that could happen to a person were capitalized on was almost impossible to bear. Peter was a bright, yellow ray of sunshine; Tony had sent him into the sewers of humanity.

“You’re clear to move.” Steve said. “Good luck, guys. We’ll see you on the other side.”

***

Steve muted Tony’s and his side of the coms so that Bucky and Peter could concentrate, and put his head in his hands. He was so consumed by the mental image of his friend, brother, _partner_ , sleeping on that cold dirt floor by himself that he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry.” Tony said.

“No, it’s okay.” Steve said, and meant it.

Tony looked worse for wear himself. His posture was so bowed in fear that it looked like he was bearing a physical weight on his shoulders, on his chest, in his lungs. It would have made Steve’s heart ache if he had any worry left in him, but he just didn’t. He hadn’t eaten in three days, and before that he’d been throwing up everything he tried to get down for a while. His head was too clouded by an oppressive concern for Bucky to form any coherent thought.

This was the first time since he got Bucky back that they wouldn’t be sleeping under the same roof. It was the first time that he couldn’t be there if Bucky had a panic attack, or knock on his door if Steve saw Bucky fall off the train again in his sleep, like he did most nights. He knew, logically, that Bucky was only in Staten Island, but he felt thousands of miles away. They might as well have sent his best friend, the best man he’d ever known, his- his _Bucky_ , to the goddamn moon. Which, apparently, they can do now.

Steve stood up, pulling Tony up with him, and held him close.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony let out a breath and let himself lean on Steve. Just for a second. Then he would be strong again.

Although he was terrified, Tony was determined to be strong for Steve through this. There was a difference between telling the kid he was scared to validate Peter’s own fear, and falling apart when Steve needed him most. Things had been hard between them after Staten Island, but preparing for this mission had been the best month they’d ever spent together. Tony would be damned if he let HYDRA beat them.

He would be damned if he failed Steve _now_.

***

Steve felt Tony pull away from his embrace long before Steve was ready to let go, giving him a smile and some short, confident quip about how Bucky and Peter are going to be just fine, and then fleeing to the kitchen to get them coffee.

Steve watched him go with a sigh. He knew Tony cared about Peter enormously; he could see it in Tony’s eyes when he talked about the kid. More than anything, Steve wanted he and Tony to be in this together. He needed a partner right now, so, even though it was hard, if Tony was going to be okay, then Steve would be okay, too.

He’d be damned if he was going to abandon Tony _now_.

***

Tony got to the kitchen before collapsing into hyperventilation from anxiety. But at least Steve had been reassured by his confidence; Tony took pride- and comfort- in that, as he sobbed and struggled to breathe on the cold linoleum floor, alone.


	13. Chapter 13

“Tony.” Steve called. “They’re in.”

“Are they okay?” Tony asked, rushing back into the room. It had been about an hour since Bucky and Peter had gone in. Tony had managed to pull it together about 15 minutes ago and had taken to nervously pacing around the main floor. 

Outside, a thunder storm was brewing low over the Manhattan skyline.

“I think so.” Steve said, leaning towards the monitor. 

From the angle of the camera, they could just barely see Bucky and Peter’s faces, but from body language, both seemed pretty badly beaten. Bucky limped to the back of the cell and slowly sat down against the wall; Peter fell to his knees as soon as the HYDRA agent holding him let go. 

Tony almost lost control of his breathing again. Peter was hurt, and he was far away, and he was totally inaccessible to Tony; but even worse than all that, he was there because of Tony. Because Peter admired him, and because Tony let him. Because Tony, selfishly, kept the kid close out of affection and- and something stronger, which was raging in his blood now and turning his vision red at the thought of someone else putting their hands on Peter, hurting him, scaring him, hating him. He couldn’t stand the thought that Peter might be made to feel like- well, like Tony did, whether he was behind enemy lines or not. Tony had to fight back to urge to pull the plug on the whole mission right now, and get Peter back in his line of sight, back in arms’ reach, back _home_ , before it was too late and he was too damaged and he grew up gnarled and loveless like the man he so mistakenly admired.

Tony reached for the switch to turn the coms back on, but Steve grabbed his arm.

“Wait.”

“What?” 

“We have to be careful when we talk to them.” 

“What are you talking about? The coms are inside their ears. HYDRA can’t hear us.”

“But we don’t know if HYDRA can hear _them_. Don’t you think someone’s probably watching them? Someone who might get suspicious if they start having entire one-sided conversations?” 

Steve had a point. Tony hadn’t thought this through.

“So what do we do?”

“We have to get them to talk to each other.”

Steve clicked the coms on as thunder cracked outside.

“Hey, guys. Your coms are back online. We’re going to leave your side open 24/7 from now on in case you need us, but try not to talk directly to us, in case HYDRA is listening.” he told them. “Anything you want to say to us, say to each other. We’ll be listening.”

Bucky didn’t react at all, with all the forethought and self-restraint of a trained soldier. Peter, on the other hand, nodded. It was brief, probably not even noticeable enough to be suspicious to any guard watching, but it turned Tony’s stomach nonetheless. He was just a _kid_. 

Tony swallowed down nausea and tried to make his voice as steady as possible. 

“Barnes, ask Peter if he’s okay. Peter, don’t bullshit him, answer him like you’re talking to me. And don’t move your head when Steve and I talk to you.”

“You alright, kid?” Bucky asked, voice crackling a little through the speakers.

“I- I think so. My side really hurts where I got kicked, which makes it kind of hard to talk- and- and breathe, but I’ll- I’m gonna be okay.” Peter choked out, voice strained from pain, but otherwise reassuringly strong. Tony relaxed just a little; at least the physical damage wouldn’t be permanent. Small victories.

“What about you?” Peter asked Bucky.

“Broken wrist and a couple of bruises. I’ll be fine by tomorrow morning.”

Peter nodded, and Tony felt some of the tension leave Steve’s shoulders beside him. He felt guilty in a whole new way. Here he was, worrying about himself, when it was probably killing Steve to watch Bucky in so much danger. He had to be stronger. He had to support Steve, even when he felt like falling apart.

“Okay.” Steve breathed to himself. “You guys did a great job today. The hardest part should be behind you, it’s just waiting and listening from here on out. And we’ll be right here, with you, the whole time.”

Even Tony saw Bucky’s small smile at such a _Steve_ pep talk. He rolled his eyes and added, “And don’t stay up past your bedtime. Remember, we’re literally always watching.”

That got him a smile from Peter, so he sat back and let Steve mute their end of the coms again. 

They both leaned back in their chairs, taking a second to breathe.

Finally, Steve looked over at Tony. 

“You alright?” 

Tony nodded. He was if that was what Steve needed from him.

“Pizza?” He suggested, offering Steve the normalcy of it even though he was still too nauseous to eat.

Steve smiled. “Hell yeah.”

***

Later that night, Steve and Tony sat on the floor with their backs to the monitors (having agreed that Bucky and Peter should probably be given _some_ privacy), and dripped grease onto paper plates while they listened to feedback crackle through the coms. 

Tony told stories from high school while Steve threw his head back and laughed.

“God, when was the last time we went on a _date_?” Steve asked finally, more casually than he’d spoken to Tony in a while.

“A _date_?” Tony asked, laughing. “Rogers, we’re adults. I didn’t realize you were waiting for me to ask you to prom.”

Steve just shook his head, still laughing. 

“Nah, prom’s overrated. Take me to Coney Island.”

“Have Barnes take you.”

It came out casual, surprisingly edgeless. When had Tony stopped being jealous?

Steve sobered a little, lips still playing with a smile, but with eyes that twinkled like the Disney prince he was.

“I’d rather go with you.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”  
  
“I’ve gone with Bucky a hundred times. He always bitches about the lines.”

“You like it anyway.”

“‘Course I do. But I’d like it more with you.”

“And what makes you say that?” 

“‘Cause I like you more.”

That stopped Tony in his tracks. Steve was being so, so genuine. But they both knew that it just couldn’t be true, didn’t they? They both knew he’d already made this decision.

Steve leaned in and kissed Tony, slow and sweet. 

“I like you, Tony. I like the way you smile, I like the way you talk.” 

He ran his hand through Tony’s hair. “I like the way you feel.” He whispered.

Tony kissed him back. He didn’t want to think about _why_ this worked anymore; he just wanted to hold the man he loved in the house he’d built for them with some scrap metal and his brain, in a cave, long, long ago. 

Steve pulled back and looked into Tony’s eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he meant anything so deeply. 

“I need you right now.” Steve said. “I- I don’t know if I can do this.”

“I can.” Tony said immediately. 

Steve’s face fell, just a little.

 _He doesn’t believe me_ , Tony thought. 

“I _can_ , Steve.” He said, voice breaking. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to falter in that, not for a second.”

Steve dropped his eyes and sat back. “Yeah.” He said in a low voice.

Tony stood up, reaching a hand down to pull Steve up with him. He didn’t know what else to do. He and Steve had just been so close to... to _something_ , but Steve had pulled back at the last second. What had Tony done wrong?

Did Steve not think he was strong enough to carry the both of them through this? Is that... is that why, when it came down to it, he needed Bucky more?

 _I have to be better_. Tony thought. _I have to be stronger. Then Steve will lean on me, and then..._

And then what? And then- then they’d be a couple again. Tony would be a source of strength, a _protector_ to Steve.

And then it would all be okay again. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I’m not dead! I’ve been busy but I’m going home this week cause all the universities in my state are closed for coronavirus so hopefully I’ll have more time to write going forward! I officially have a solid, official, pen-on-paper outline that goes all the way to the end of this story. Thank you to everyone who’s still reading. Seriously. It means so much to me, I know that this is kinda a niche topic, it’s not the typical mcu fic, and every single time I see a new kudo or comment it makes my whole day. If I haven’t responded to your comment it’s only because I can’t say anything meaningful without spoiling something. But I’m reading all of them and every single one of them matters a lot to me. Please keep leaving feedback!!! It’s the most validating thing on the planet.

Steve woke up the next morning in the living room next to the monitors. Tony had taken the night shift, but Steve hadn’t been able to sleep out of earshot of Bucky, so he’d ended up crashing on the couch next to Tony. Steve heard a page turn; Tony was reading to pass the time, unwilling to do anything that would require him to put in headphones and possibly miss something from Peter.

Steve didn’t open his eyes just yet. He was lying with his head on Tony’s lap, feeling him breathe, enveloped in the familiar scent of expensive cologne and clean cotton. This was everything he wanted from Tony right now: this camaraderie that grows only in the deepest trenches of war, the understanding of having walked through Hell together, holding hands and watching each other’s backs. He couldn’t understand why Tony kept putting distance between them, kept saying he was fine when he clearly wasn’t. He couldn’t understand why Tony didn’t trust him enough to go through this together with him.

Steve’s worst fear was that this was about Staten Island. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, but they had never fully resolved it, the conflict had just... faded away. Would Tony never be able to trust him again? Steve couldn’t bear the thought. He loved Tony more than anything else on this side of the ice. He didn’t know how to make Tony see that Bucky wasn’t _competition_ , he was... he was a _part_ of Steve. Tony might as well be jealous of Steve’s right arm. And in any- _any_ \- other circumstance, Steve would have put Tony first. If Steve had to decide who he’d rather spend time with on a day-to-day basis, the answer was genuinely Tony. If he found himself with a whole night to himself, he’d call Tony first. If both Tony and Bucky were in crisis and needed to talk to him, he’d feel terrible, but he’d go to Tony first. Because he _could_. He could do all that, and he could _want_ all that, because he had different obligations to both of them. He was in a relationship with Tony because he wanted to put him first, and be around him all the time, and sleep next to him, and have sex with him, and be the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning. 

It was only when it came to life or death- to the idea of having to live without one of them, permanently- that Steve would hold Bucky closer than Tony. That wasn’t something he could change; that was a decision he’d made before he finished puberty. But it didn’t mean he didn’t love Tony, because he _did_. He knew it like he knew the sun would come up tomorrow. 

Some feedback crackled through the monitors. Tony looked up. Steve opened his eyes. 

_He looks so worried_. Steve thought. The lines of Tony’s face were deep and severe, framing dark bags under darting eyes. He was gripping the book he was holding so hard the the pages creased. 

Steve was struck by how genuinely Tony must care for Peter. Any secondhand worry about how the boy’s aunt must feel or what the other Avengers would think if it turned out Tony had sent a kid to his death wouldn’t have this effect on him. Steve knew Tony well enough to know the patterns of his anxiety: the social anxiety of what others would think if Peter got hurt would have been characterized by a jittery excess of energy leading to eventual burnout. This quiet, still, watchful waiting was different; it was war anxiety- concern for a loved one in danger of losing their life.

This whole time, Steve had considered Tony’s anxiety to originate from a sense of duty to the boy. But in the soft light of the early morning, and the hard line of Tony’s mouth, Steve saw love. He saw love in mortal danger, and a helplessness that called out to Steve’s own.

Steve was watching his own worry play out over Tony’s features when the other man looked down and met Steve’s eyes. Immediately, the mirror image fled, replaced by a carefully constructed strength and confidence. It shattered the peace of the morning, and set Steve’s pulse back to racing (which was its default setting nowadays). 

Just like that, Tony was lost to Steve again. Just like that, Steve was cut off from both of the people he loved more than life itself, and powerless to help free either of them from their respective captivities.

“Mornin’.” Tony offered.

Steve reached up and kissed him softly. “How was the night shift?” 

“Uneventful. Nothing but Barnes’ snoring.”

“He’s got a deviated septum.”

“What, d’ya break his nose over who got to take Babe Ruth to homecoming?”

Steve laughed and shoved Tony playfully.

“Babe Ruth was 40 by the time I was in high school, asshole.”

“And? Weren’t there no laws back then?”

Steve sat up and grabbed Tony, throwing him down on the couch and straddling him so he couldn’t get up. Tony threw his hands up, laughing. Steve caught them and interlocked their fingers.

“Okay, but seriously, did you break his nose? Cause you need a lot of force to deviate someone’s septum. Like, unfair-advantage-because-one-of-you-has-powers force.”

“Of course I didn’t! Bucky and I never fought, especially as adults. And I’d never hit someone who I had an unfair advantage over.”

“Well then who did?”

“Please don’t make me tell you this story right now, it’ll totally ruin the mood.”

“What mood?” Tony asked, teasing. 

Steve smiled mischievously. “This one.”

He held Tony’s hands down to the couch on either side of his head and leaned down to kiss him. Tony met him halfway, enthusiastically slipping his tongue between Steve’s lips, already breathing heavier. He freed one of his hands and reached down to undo Steve’s pants.

“The coms are definitely muted, right?” Steve asked.

“Yep, I can see the mute symbol from here.” 

“Good.” Steve said, catching Tony’s free hand and pinning it back to the couch. He leaned down and whispered in Tony’s ear, “because I’m going to make you _scream_.”

***

Later that morning, after they had both showered (reluctantly separate, so one of them could always have an eye on Peter and Bucky), they sat together by the monitors, sipping coffee and talking strategy.

“Hm, maybe,” Steve was saying, “but that’s assuming HYDRA needs them alive.”

“Well, how come they’ve kept them alive this long?”

“Presumably to sell them.”

“So then they’d be guaranteed safety if they had any interested buyers.”

“Maybe not “guaranteed”, but the higher the price, the less HYDRA would be willing to hurt them, I think.”

“I have a few contacts that would be believable as-”

“No.”

“Now is not the time for moral Puritanism, babe.”

“First of all, if you make exceptions to your morality in wartime, you’ll always be at war. But that’s not even what I meant. No one else even knows they have Bucky and Peter yet, and we’re not sure that HYRDA even knows who they are and what they can do. To make an offer now would blow their cover.”

Tony frowned, unhappy to be at a dead end. On the other side of the monitors, Bucky and Peter were just waking up.

“I wonder what time it is.” Peter said with a yawn.

“9:18 am.” Tony answered. “Tuesday morning. Partly cloudy, about 25 degrees.”

Outer world orientation was one of the first things prisoners lost in solitary confinement, so Nat (as the resident expert in torture, which she apparently didn’t appreciate being called to her face) had helped Steve and Tony had set up a system to keep Bucky and Peter sane. Automatic time checks on the hour, a daily weather report and rolling coverage of the news would hopefully keep them connected to the outside world.

“Your goal for today is to find the rest of the prisoners.” Steve intoned (having tasks to complete was another way to ease the effects of solitary).

Bucky got up and walked to the bars. He said something to the guard outside in Russian. The guard looked at him, laughed, and reached a taser through the bars that threw Bucky back to the far wall of the cell. 

Steve flinched, hard. Peter yelped in alarm.

“Jesus, Buck, what the hell are you doing?”

“Your little friend just offered to kill you in sleep for own freedom.” the guard said to Peter in heavily accented English, smiling sadistically. “As if we could not have already done that to you both.”

Peter looked at Bucky, betrayed. 

“I’m not your fucking bodyguard, kid. I’m getting out of here.”

“Barnes, you’ve got about three seconds to explain.” Tony snapped.

“Wait,” Steve said. “This could work. Good thinking, Buck.”

“Anyone wanna rope Peter and I in on this charming old Howling Commandos plot?”

“It’s not from the commandos, Tony.” Steve said. “We used this strategy in holding cells before the army.”

“Holding cells?”

“Police raids on gay bars.” Steve explained. “One of us would pretend to be willing to cut a deal, then when they took him out of the cell for interrogation, they would walk him past all of the other cells, and he could see who got away and who didn’t. Then you’d know who you could call for bail.”

“And how exactly does that apply to offering to kill Peter in his sleep?”

“Well, it’s not exactly the same, but it might help if HYDRA thinks Bucky and Peter are working against each other. ‘Enemy of my enemy’, you know.”

Tony nodded, beginning to understand. “The guards might let their, well, _guard_ down a little bit.”

“Exactly.”

“Alright,” Tony said. “I’m on board. You got that, Pete? Think you guys can pull off good-prisoner, bad-prisoner?”

“Fine!” Peter yelled at Bucky. “I see how it is!”

“Good boy.” Tony answered.

“Are you alright, Bucky?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.” Bucky spat at Peter. “And don’t you forget it.”

“Fuck you.” Peter answered. 

“Good.” Steve said. “You guys are doing great. Keep it up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment! Even if you hate it! Especially if you hate it! Tell me why! Argue with me! Human interaction!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know what I thought I’d be doing during the apocalypse, but it wasn’t this.

Shortly after Peter and Bucky were notified that it was 2pm, two more slices of bread were thrown through the bars. Seeing an opportunity to pick a fight, Peter grabbed them both. Bucky caught on immediately.

“Give me one of those or I break your wrist.”

“I’d like to see you blow your goddamn nose without receiving an order from Captain America first.” 

“Oh, good one!” Tony chirped from the Tower. 

Steve rolled his eyes and smiled.

Bucky put Peter in a headlock. 

“You can give me my lunch, or I can choke you out. Your choice.”

“Did you give JFK a choice before you killed _him_?” 

“Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy,” Bucky said flatly. “I just gave him the gun.” 

“Wait, really?” Peter said, breaking character for a second.

“Focus, bud.” Tony said. Then, as an aside to Steve, “He’s wanted to ask Bucky that since he met him.” 

“He’s kidding.” Steve said into the coms. “He wasn’t involved in Kennedy’s assassination.” 

“Aw,” Tony said, “I bet Peter $5 that he was.” 

“He did kill Tupac, though.”

“That’s private, punk.” Bucky growled, taking the bread from Peter and letting him go.

“You told Nat!” Steve said indignantly.

Tony laughed as Peter and Bucky sat back down on opposite sides of the cell. 

“Okay, seriously,” Tony said, muting the coms, “What else did he do? Moon landing? Elvis? The Titanic?”

“The Titanic sank before we were born, Tony.”

“Sounds like something that someone whose best friend sunk the Titanic would say.” 

Steve shoved Tony good naturedly. Tony stood up, grabbed his hands and pulled him in close.

Steve sighed and rested his forehead on Tony’s shoulder, snaking his arms around his waste. They stood there quietly for a minute, leaning on each other and catching their breath, acutely aware of how rare quiet moments like this had been lately. 

“I love you.” Steve said quietly.

“I love you, too.”

“Are you scared?”

“Not even a little.”

Steve sighed and stepped back. 

“No, Steve, wait.” Tony said. There was pining in his voice. “I’m okay,” he pleaded. “I promise.”

Steve shook his head. “No, it’s not- I’m sorry.” 

He was so _sorry_. “I’m sorry.” He said again, because he didn’t know what else he _could_ say. Tony didn’t trust him, and he couldn’t fix it. 

Steve wiped a tear from his eye before it could fall.

“Hey.” Tony said softly, wanting so badly to hold Steve up, to hold him _together_ , to keep him safe. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t want-”

“Hold the big one back.” came a Russian accent from the monitors.

Steve and Tony looked at each other for a second, and then were back in their seats in front of the screen immediately, right as five HYDRA agents stormed into Bucky and Peter’s cell.

Two of them went straight for Bucky, pulling his arms behind his back and kicking his knees out so that he was kneeling on the floor. He froze. Steve recognized the reaction, but before he could even think, Peter was taking a step towards Bucky and being lifted off his feet by the guard behind him in response, and slammed back into the wall, hard. He fell to his knees, and two guards held his arms back, forcing his head down so he was looking at the ground. 

Every cell in Tony’s body jumped into action, uselessly, because all he could do was sit in his chair, swallow back vomit, and watch them torture the kid that Tony would die for.

The agent who wasn’t holding either of them stood in the middle of the cell. “There’s no fighting over food in here, boys.” He said, eerily calm. “We need you both to be well-fed for the sale.”

Then he smiled, flexed his hand so that the brass knuckles he was wearing glinted in the dim light, and slammed his fist into Peter’s face.

“No!” Tony screamed. Steve gripped the metal arms of his chair so hard that they bent. Bucky flinched hard enough to get a knee to the back from one of the guards holding him. 

The agent hit Peter again, breaking his nose. Peter spluttered and gasped as blood poured down his face.

“Pete.” Tony said desperately. “Hey, buddy, it’s-” his voice broke- “it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay, don’t worry, I-”

Another hit, this time to the gut. Peter doubled over and the guards pulled him back up by the hair, at just the right angle for the next punch to hit his jaw. 

Peter whimpered. Tony put his head into his hands and let out a strangled, wounded scream, like a dying animal.

“Play nice, now.” The agent said, bearing his teeth. The guards let Peter and Bucky go and walked out.

Peter curled into a ball on the floor, crying softly. 

“Son, are you-” Steve started, but stopped when he heard himself. The kid was obviously not okay. 

Tony’s voice was steady, but tears were streaming down his face. “You’re okay, kiddo. You’re okay. It’s over now. Just breathe.”

Steve put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. In fact, he physically moved away from Steve as much as he could while sitting in front of the monitor, continuing to whisper to Peter, telling him that he was going to be okay. That it wasn’t his fault. That he was a great kid.

Steve’s eyes were on Bucky. He hadn’t moved since the guards had grabbed him. Steve tried to grab Tony’s hand one more time, but was rejected again, so he stood up and walked into the kitchen, carrying one of the mics with him. He switched the setting so only Bucky could hear him.

“Hey, Buck. I’ve got the mic set so that I’m only talking to you.” He paused, trying to come up with the right words. “I saw you shut down the second they grabbed you. It took me by surprise, too.”

This was hard without being able to see Bucky. He would’ve killed for a nod, or a shudder, or even just some eye contact to try and figure out where Bucky’s head was at. 

“I stepped away from the monitor to let Tony talk to Peter alone, so I don’t have eyes on you. I feel blind. And- and kinda helpless, this far away.

On the other end of the line, Steve heard Bucky take a deep, slightly shaky breath.

“Yeah.” Steve said quietly. “You must feel the same way down there. But my point is- I- I still got your back. Always, Bucky. Like, when I saw you freeze up, I knew it was the PTSD. And I knew that you thought they were going to start on you next. Hell, I was scared for you, too. But they didn’t. So now you’re waiting for it, terrified, thinking that it could come from anywhere. But that’s just the PTSD, bud, I promise. I get the same thing after most missions. You just have to take deep breaths, and ground yourself in the present moment. Not the past or the future, just the right now. Just the peace. Just your breathing.

He heard Bucky breathe again. “Yeah, just like that. You’ve got it.”

Steve listened to Bucky’s breathing for a little while longer, talking him down when he heard it getting faster and shallower again. When he was confident that Bucky was going to be okay, he walked back into the living room.

On the monitors, Peter had sat up, and was using the sleeve of his shirt to carefully clean the blood off his face. Overall, he looked shaken, but relatively steady, all things considered. Bucky was sitting at Peter’s side, one hand on his shoulder, visibly concentrating on keeping himself calm, even as he tried to offer Peter some comfort. Steve felt a rush of affection for him, chased by a wave of desperation; he would’ve done anything to be sitting next to Bucky, comforting him in the same way. 

Tony wasn’t in the living room. With a bad feeling in his gut, Steve walked on to their bedroom. 

He found Tony sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, head resting on his knees pulled up to his chest. He didn’t look up when Steve walked in.

“No,” he moaned. “No, I- I’m sorry, Steve, but I can’t right now. Please just leave me alone.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“ _Please_.” Tony pleaded. “Please, I- I can’t handle the pressure. I can’t do it right now, I know that you need me I know it’s my job I want to be strong for you I _do_ but I feel like I’m dying and I can’t protect Peter and I can’t protect _you_ and I can’t do _anything_ and I just- I just want you to trust me, and that’s why I need you to go, because you already don’t trust me to hold you up and seeing me like this is just, just, I’m-”

He cut off, visibly shaking with the effort to not cry. Steve sat down next to him and put an arm around his shoulders, just relieved to be able to. He shushed him gently and pulled him close.

“I do trust you, Tony. Completely.”

“No, you don’t, Steve. I see it when you look at me. Every time I tell you that I’ve got this, that I’m not scared, you pull away from me.”

“Because it’s a lie.” Steve said, though not unkindly. 

“It’s _not_ , Steve. I can protect you, I promise. I _love_ you!”

“That’s- that’s not what love means, Tony.” Steve said. “It doesn’t mean that you’ll protect me, it just means that you’ll be here for me, even when you can’t protect me.”

Tony let out a hollow laugh. “Oh, so it means that you’ll be stuck with me even after I’ve failed you.” He said cynically. “That’s romantic.”

“First of all, _yes_. I want to be stuck with you no matter what. And second of all, not being able to ‘protect me’ is not the same thing as failing me.”

“Yes, yes, I know the line. I could _never_ fail you, because you _love_ me. But that’s not how relationships work in the real world-”

“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say you could never fail me.”

Tony looked up, finally.

“Failing to protect me isn’t failing _me_. We live dangerous lives, Tony. Even if we weren’t celebrities, we’d be superheroes, and even if we weren’t superheroes, we’d be adults. Shit happens, cars crash, wars break out. There’s always going to be something bigger and stronger than we are. Even you can’t build a suit of armor good enough to keep it all out.”

Tony hung his head in shame. 

“Hey,” Steve said gently, lifting Tony’s chin with his hand. “I’m not done. I don’t want you to be my bodyguard. I want you to be my partner.”

Tony looked at him, still desperately afraid and not understanding. 

“Fight _with_ me, Tony. Not for me.”

“What’s the difference?” Tony whispered.

“When I’m scared, be scared, not strong. When I’m sad, let me cry, don’t make me laugh. And when you feel like you’re going to break,” Steve said, gently stroking Tony’s cheek with his thumb, “hold my hand. Don’t run away.”

Tony started to cry. Steve held him tighter, and this time, Tony leaned into it. 

“The only way you could ever fail me is by abandoning me. But falling down, being scared, crying, worrying- God, that’s the opposite of failing me. That’s the greatest support you could ever give me.”

Tony was quiet for a while after that, crying gently into Steve’s shoulder.

“I just- don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” He said finally. “You or Peter. And I just have to sit here and watch them beat the shit out of Peter, and I watch you worry over Barnes- over Bucky- and I just- Steve, I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop protecting you. I love you. By God, it’ll be the death of me, but _I love you_.”

Steve sighed. He understood. He finally understood why Tony had been pulling away from him since Peter and Bucky went into HYDRA. It was a relief, in a way, but it also made him deeply sad. He and Tony loved in such difference ways. How could they bridge this gap? How could Steve make Tony understand that by being his partner, he _was_ protecting him? How could he explain to the man who had built a steel cage out of scrap metal in the middle of the desert and escaped the Taliban in it, that this kind of partnership was the only kind of protection that wasn’t a myth? That this was the only thing that, when the world is blown to shit and you’re standing naked in the wreckage of it, was the only thing that mattered? The only thing that persevered? The only thing in the whole goddamn multiverse that was even _real_?

Steve sighed. “Wanna know what happened to Bucky’s nose?” He asked finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy quarantine! Let me know what you think :)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSULT OF A CHILD

_Steve and Bucky walked a little ways behind their parents on the way to Church, talking in low voices so that the adults wouldn’t overhear._

_“I heard no one’s seen him since.” Steve told Bucky nervously._

_“That’s bullshit. He’s in my math class, I saw him two days ago.”_

_“So he’s okay? It was just a rumor, then?”_

_Bucky shook his head. “It’s hard to explain. There’s not a scratch on him, but he’s- he’s different. He doesn’t make eye contact, he’s thinner even though his brothers look well-fed. It’s like he’s a ghost or something.”_

_“And it all started-”_

_“-after his Confirmation retreat...”_

_“With Father James.” Steve blew air out through his nose. “But all the other boys are fine?”_

_“As far as anyone can tell.”_

_“So then- then maybe there’s no reason to think that- I mean, there might be another explanation-”_

_“But it happens every year, Steve!” Bucky snapped, loud enough to get some weird looks from those around them._

_They both put their heads down and walked on a few paces without talking._

_“The Williams boy that hung himself last year,” Bucky continued in a whisper. “Didn’t he have Father James for retreat? And Andy O’Connor, before he ran away and got hit by that train-”_

_“And all the boys who work the docks down by the Bowery after midnight.” Steve finished._

_It was almost common knowledge, in that covert, underground way kids learn all the things they aren’t supposed to know about. All the boys who go off the rails the hardest- drugs, drinking, doing hits for the mob- pretty much all of them connect back to Father James in some way._

_Kids say he’s a satanist, and that if he gets you alone, he puts the Devil in you. Steve and Bucky had both agreed years ago that there was no such thing as the Devil, but it’s one thing to be brave on the schoolyard in broad daylight. It’s another thing when your own retreat bus leaves right after Mass._

_“Okay, look- say you’re right. Say the stories are true. What can we do? We need this retreat to get Confirmed, and Father James is the only one running them this year. Even if we can get out of this one, we’ll just have to go on the next one.”_

_Bucky sighed. “I know. It’s just...”_

_“Yeah. Me too.”_

“Jesus Christ.” Tony said.

“I know that it’s well-known, now, what the priests were doing. But back then...” Steve shook his head. “We didn’t question authority. We may not have been the most traditionally _establishment_ neighborhood, but it wasn’t some grassroots rebellion thing. The governor didn’t look out for us, so we let the Mob keep order. Our teachers beat us, so we trusted the priests because they didn’t. Ghost stories about the Devil were genuinely the least controversial explanation for what happened to those boys.”

Tony nodded. “I... actually understand that. Things weren’t all that different in the 70s. I mean, the cities had the Civil Rights movements and the hippies and everything, but it was all counter culture. In the suburbs, in- in my family- authority was all there was.”

Steve hummed in thought and camaraderie. “The world is different now.” He said, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Unrecognizable.” Tony confirmed.

For a minute, Steve appreciated that Tony really _did_ understand this piece of Steve’s life. They may not have a lot in common, but they shared the big, important stuff. They shared this.

“So... what happened?” Tony asked in a low voice.

“Nothing.” Steve answered firmly. “Well, not nothing, but not- not-”

_“This is actually pretty fun.” Steve said, rolling out his sleeping bag. He didn’t have a tent, so he was sharing Bucky’s. It was safer to stick together, anyway._

_The retreat had mostly just been hiking and listening to sermons around a campfire so far, and as far as mandatory religious obligations go, it wasn’t half bad. It was hard for a gaggle of 13 year old boys from the city not to enjoy a weekend of camping, no matter what the context._

_Bucky nodded in agreement. “And I heard we’re going to the lake tomorrow.”_

_“That wasn’t in the schedule! I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”_

_“Yeah, that’s like, the point, apparently. One of the older boys said that everyone just swims naked. It’s part of the whole manliness theme.”_

_“Eww, I don’t want to see everyone’s wieners.”_

_“Oh, stop being such a baby. We’re men now! We’re supposed to be mature about this.”_

_The next day they sat on the dock with a few of the other boys who weren’t swimming, chatting and laughing casually. It was a nice day, and everyone was in a good mood. The boys in the lake- naked as the day they were born- wrestled and raced and splashed each other amicably._

“So, this is when you realized you were queer, then?” Tony said with a smirk.

“Hush,” Steve answered with a smile, “That’s a different story.”

_When the sun began to set, most of the boys dried off and hiked back to camp to sit around the fire. Steve and Bucky (who didn’t get cold as easily because they had stayed dry), were the last two to leave. And it was as they were walking back to the campsite in the near darkness of late twilight that they ran into Father James, wearing nothing but a towel around his waste._

Tony slipped his hand into Steve’s as the latter’s face grew stone cold at the memory.

_“Aw, am I too late to go swimming?” Father James asked good-naturedly._

_“Yeah, sorry.” Bucky answered. “Everybody got cold and left to make s’mores.”_

_“That’s a shame. I was all ready to swim and everything, look.”_

_Father James removed the towel from around his waste and threw it over his shoulder, exposing himself to the boys. The same smile remained on his face, but there was something more sinister about it now._

_Steve felt his face grow hot at the embarrassment of seeing the grown man naked, and he began to feel a pull in his gut, a deep instinct that told him to flee. He didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but he knew that he and Bucky were in danger._

_“I, um, I think we should probably go back to camp.” Steve said, looking anywhere but at the priest._

_“Oh, you go ahead. James, why don’t you accompany me back down to the lake? I would love to go for a swim with you.”_

_Bucky looked at Steve, fear set deep into the creases of his eyes. Steve was frozen in panic, and could only look back, helplessly._

_“Oh, well, actually, I’m really hungry, and-”_

_“I insist.” Father James said, in a tone that left no room for argument._

“ _I’ll come, too.” Steve said, his only clear thought to stay with Bucky no matter what._

_“No, no, you go back to camp. We need someone to tell the others where James and I went, in case they worry.”_

_He started to walk on in the direction of the lake, clearly ending the conversation. As he passed the boys, he slung an arm around Bucky’s shoulders to pull him along. Bucky’s whole body seized up at the contact and he tried to pull away, but he couldn’t break Father James’ grip._

_Something about the sight of Bucky struggling against an overpowering opponent, like so many neighborhood fist fights, snapped Steve out of the frozen state he was in. He ran forward and grabbed Bucky’s free arm._

_The priest was on him in an instant. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”_

_“You’re- you’re hurting him. Let him go!”_

_Steve knew he sounded pathetic and juvenile, even in the moment, but he wasn’t going anywhere without Bucky._

_“Hurting him? You want to see me hurt him?”_

_He threw Bucky to the ground and stomped on his face with his bare heel, hard. Bucky screamed in pain._

_“Shut up.” He growled, before he turned back to Steve. He grabbed the front of Steve’s shirt and lifted him off the ground until he was at eye level. “Listen to me very carefully. I have been a priest in this diocese for 35 years. The last kid who complained about me is dead, and so is everyone he complained to. I swear on my fucking cross, they will always-_ always _\- take my word over yours. No matter what you say, or who you say it to, no one will ever believe you. So why don’t you leave right now, forget about your little friend, and have some fucking s’mores. He’ll be back later.”_

_Steve glared at the man, fuming with more anger than he had ever felt in his life. All of his fear had dissolved into pure, righteous fury. But as many times as Father James had done this, apparently he’d never lifted a kid off the ground before. Maybe Steve was smaller than his usual targets- whatever the reason, he didn’t seem to notice the position he was holding him in let Steve’s feet hang right in front of the priest’s exposed balls._

_Steve kicked as hard as he could, and Father James crumpled. Steve took a step to run, but the priest caught his ankle and he went crashing to the ground face first. Steve felt his hands creep up his legs, grabbing and pulling him closer as he tried to crawl away. The naked man was on his knees now, and he was reaching for Steve’s belt-_

_CRASH_

_Father James fell to the ground and lay still. Steve hastily scrambled away to a safe distance and turned around to see Bucky standing behind the priest, blood running down his face from his crushed nose, holding a large rock above his head. For a second, they just stood there, neither of them knowing what to do, or what to say. The weight of what had just happened began to settle on their shoulders, almost too much to bear. Bucky put the rock down, carefully, like it might break. Steve got to his feet. Without saying anything, they walked back to their tent, together, carefully avoiding the fire where all the other boys and chaperones were singing something loud and cheerful._

Steve stared at the ground.

“What happened to the priest?” Tony asked darkly.

“Nothing.” Steve spat. “Not a goddamn thing. He was back the next day. We all acted like nothing happened- I told everyone I broke Bucky’s nose in a fight over a girl, and Father James told everyone he slipped on the rocks by the lake and bumped his head. He left Bucky and I alone after that, but the other boys...” Steve shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if we should’ve just finished the job.”

“Oh, Steve.” Tony said sadly. “You were _thirteen_. You guys were _victims_. This isn’t your fault.

A tear fell from Steve’s face into Tony’s hair. “So many kids, Tony. He was only 60 years old, he could’ve worked another 25 years. He was still at the parish I went into the ice. Every single one of those boys, every one that came after us- Bucky and I could’ve saved them. If we’d killed him, if we’d told somebody, if-”

“Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself. You were _children_ , you couldn’t have possibly protected-”

“I know!” Steve yelled. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Tony! Our power, our heroism, all of it- it’s an illusion. It’s a fantasy. Bad shit happens. It happens every fucking day and there is nothing- _nothing_ \- we can do to stop it. You can’t protect me. No one can. It doesn’t exist. The only thing you can do- the only thing in the world that makes it worth continuing to live, that makes evil worth fighting, that makes _hope_ worth it- is stand. By. Me. If you stand by me, I’ll be okay. We might not always win, hell, one day we might not even walk away from the battle, but as long as you’re by my side, we can fight. And fighting? More than victory and defeat, more than safety and danger, more than peace and war- fighting is the only thing in this world that really, truly exists.”

Tony looked at Steve, crying openly, and he understood. He finally understood. He understood that the way he’d been loving Steve wasn’t connecting them anymore. That it had been fine in the good times, but not now, not when they needed each other most. The crises of the last few months had been pulling them apart, but it wasn’t because they didn’t love each other enough, it was that they had been loving each other _differently_ , and missing each other by miles.

Tony thought about his childhood full of bullies that he couldn’t just hit back, like Steve and Bucky always had- from the press to his father and a thousand adults in between. He thought about he had longed for someone to protect him from it all. He thought of the suits he’d built and the team he’d gathered and how it had all been a shield from the things he was afraid of. And he thought about how when he’d fallen in love with Steve, he’d instinctively applied the same subconscious logic to him, and did everything he could to protect him. In his blind drive forward, he’d at some point crossed an invisible line, and wound up trying to possess Steve. Hence, his jealously towards Bucky, which he could see now was not only unwarranted, but simply illogical.

And now, he saw. He saw that the inevitable chinks in all the armor he’d built weren’t failures, but lessons. They were glaring neon signs that his ambition to put his whole world in a bubble just wasn’t realistic. And his whole life, he’d automatically assumed that that was just because he wasn’t good enough. His whole life he’d assumed that he was as stupid as his father always said. But in the same way he could see as clearly as day that Steve and Bucky had been victims, not failures, and that Peter’s occasional mistake or dead end in the lab didn’t even exist in the same universe as stupidity- Tony saw that he wasn’t a failure for not being able to protect Steve. He was just trying to do the impossible. 

In another time, Tony may have scoffed and disregarded this whole thing, continuing to aim for the impossible and continuing to hate himself for not being able to reach it; it was far safer to assume he was stupid with limited evidence than to risk believing otherwise and being knocked down by something he couldn’t control. But he had Steve now, and Steve was far too important to gamble on. So from now on, Tony would stop reaching for the impossible- from now on, he would reach only for Steve’s hand. 

“I understand.” He told Steve.

“You do?”

“I do.”

And he kissed him, climbing into his lap, wanting to be as close to him as possible now that they were finally whole again, finally together and right and good again. “I really, really do.”

And he did. He really, really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw- this isn’t the end! I have more loose ends to tie up! Stay tuned for one or two more chapters :)


	17. Chapter 17

Steve and Tony woke up the next morning tangled up in each other. Tony laid with his head on Steve’s chest, gently rising and falling with his breathing. He felt calmer than he had in a very long time. He was warm, and had slept well, and things would have been perfect if it wasn’t for that beeping noise coming from the living room...

Tony jumped out of bed like he was on fire. “Steve, the alarms! Something’s wrong.”

He rushed to the living room and sat down in front of the monitors, Steve half a second behind him. Tony’s blood ran cold; the cell was empty.

“C’mon.” Steve said, without missing a beat. “Suit up. We’re going to get them.”

Five minutes later, they were in a quinjet halfway to the HYDRA facility where Bucky and Peter were being kept. While Tony piloted, Steve hastily threw together a mission. 

Bucky and Peter had been taken from their cell about a minute before the alarms had woke Steve and Tony. Before leaving the cell, they had been shackled separately, and then to a single chain that kept them less than four feet apart; they were going to be sold. 

Once Peter and Bucky left the building, the fight expanded exponentially, and the odds of everyone getting home safely dropped far past the point of comfort; Steve and Tony needed to get there as soon as possible.

Eight long minutes later, they finally landed on the roof. This was extraction plan A: fight down from the top of the building, clear every floor as they go. No surprises, and always the higher ground; they had done this drill probably a hundred times before they had sent Peter and Bucky in.

The problem was, Peter and Bucky were in the basement, and Steve and Tony were running out of time. They cleared the first two floors easily, encountering five people in total, all of whom went down in one hit. The next floor down was the second floor, where the base of operations seemed to be. Steve and Tony were outnumbered about 10 to 1. They locked eyes briefly right before the fight started; they didn’t have _time_ for this.

With three men down and more than a dozen to go, a car engine started downstairs. Tony looked at Steve again, and between them, they came to a decision. This was _Bucky_ and _Peter_ at risk. They had reached the “anything” in “would do _anything_ ”.

Steve hit the deck and Tony fired, sweeping his arm across the room. They were both down the stairs before the bodies hit the floor.

And thank God they were because they reached the ground floor just in time to see Bucky and Peter, _right there_ , in person and closer than they had been in what felt like forever- and with guns pointed at each of their heads. 

“One more step and they both die.” said a man in a three piece suit who was standing a step behind Bucky and Peter. Tony’s eyes scanned Peter for injuries, and he seemed terrified, but otherwise unharmed. 

Tony heard the unmistakable _click_ of a gun at the back of his head, and saw Steve drop his shield out of the corner of his eye.

“Suit off, Stark.” ordered the Russian man. Tony slowly retracted his armor, feeling naked when he was left in only a cotton T-shirt and pants. 

The man began to monologue- the usual stuff about world domination and eliminating the weak- while Tony did the math in his head. He still had his gauntlet, but he would need a distraction to activate it. Even with that extra second, he’d only have time to shoot one of the agents before the rest could react. 

There was no guarantee that the other agents would all kill their prisoners, but, still, Tony only had one shot to save someone for certain. Himself, Steve, or Peter (technically Bucky was there, too, but Tony didn’t have in himself to care right now). And if he was being honest with himself, it wasn’t even hard.

Steve met his eyes with a hard, rebellious look that said he wasn’t going to let this happen, wasn’t going to let any harm come to the four of them. It was that fighting spirit, that fire in Steve’s eyes that Tony had fallen in love with in the first place all those years ago. And he knew as he looked back at him that although Steve wouldn’t be happy with Tony’s choice, he’d understand. 

The man in the suit got to the part of the monologue about how they had always known who Bucky and Peter were (HYDRA’s surveillance had picked up the radio waves from their coms- Tony made a note to be pissed about how stupid that was later), and Tony shouted “Now!”

Steve elbowed the guard behind Tony in the face in the half second in took Tony to engage the gauntlet and fire it directly into the heart of the man pointing his gun at Peter.

Chaos ensued, both sides took a few good hits. Eventually the fighting stopped and Peter, Steve, Bucky and Tony were the only ones left standing, bruised and bloody but all alive. 

Steve ran to Bucky and tackled him in a bear hug that would have crushed anyone without superpowers. Bucky closed his eyes and hugged him back just as tightly.

Tony rushed forward to hold Peter in his arms. The kid was shaking and breathing in short, heavy gulps.

“It’s okay, Pete, I got you.” Tony said soothingly. “I’ve got you now. You don’t have to be brave anymore.”

Peter let out a strangled sob and clutched Tony tighter. “Can I go home now?” he whispered.

“Yes.” Tony said. “You’ll be home in 15 minutes. It’s all over.”

And it was. They flew straight to Queens and deposited Peter in May’s arms; Tony spent the night in the guest room at Peter’s request. The next morning, he found Peter out on the porch.

“Hey, kiddo.” 

Peter looked up and tried to smile in greeting.

“Hey.”

“How do you feel?”

Peter shrugged, and then shook his head. Tony didn’t push.

“Did we get them?”

“Every last one. Over fifty kids are back home this morning because of you, Pete.”

Peter nodded. “Good.”

“No,” Tony said. “It’s _amazing_. Spectacular, even, Spider-Man. You’re a superhero. A real, bonafide, world-saving superhero.”

Peter managed a small smile. “Does that mean you’ll let me stay up past my bedtime?”

“Absolutely not.”

Peter chuckled. Tony scooted closer and put an arm around him. He leaned his head on Tony’s shoulder. 

“Both my parents died when I was six years old.” Peter said quietly. “And then when I was 14, I watched my uncle bleed out right in front of me.”

Tony looked down at him.

“I’ve been taking care of myself- standing on my own two feet- for a really, really long time. But being in there all alone, with only an adult I barely knew who had to pretend to hate me anyway...”

Peter shook his head, tears in his eyes. “I know I’m too old for this, Mr. Stark, but I- I’m so tired. And I want another- I need someone to- someone who _knows_ , because I love May and she’ll always be my parent but she’s not a superhero, and she can’t be there on missions but you can and I really need that-”

“Pete.” Tony cut him off. He got what Peter was saying now, and he was more than ready to take the reigns. “I’ve known this for a while now. I’ve been afraid to say anything, I think, I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries or make you uncomfortable, but you’re like- no, fuck that- you _are_ a son to me. And if you need a dad, I’ll be first in line.

Peter looked at Tony with a joy that went beyond smiling. “Really?”

“Really.” Tony said, kissing the crown of the kid’s- his kid’s head. “I’m grateful that I found you every single day. I love you, buddy.”

“I love you, too, Mr. Stark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter!!


	18. Chapter 18

Tony returned to the Tower the next day. He found Steve sitting in the kitchen; Tony poured himself a whiskey and sat down at the table across from him. It was time for the conversation they’d been putting off for far too long.

Steve sat down across from him at the table, and they locked eyes. Tony figured he would get straight to the point. 

“Do we have to break up?”

“No.” Steve said firmly. “Fuck that.”

Tony ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not your priority.” he said tiredly. “And you’re not mine. We’ve both proved it.”

“Maybe we don’t have to be, Tony.”

“That- Steve, that can’t be healthy.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not how it works.”

“Look.” Steve said. “Maybe- maybe you’re not- maybe you’re not my first priority in death, but you’re my first priority in life by a mile. That’s gotta count for something.”

“It does.” Tony answered. “But does it count for enough?”

Steve dropped his head into his hands. “Only you can answer that, Tony.”

“No, Steve, that’s my point. This isn’t about how I feel about you. I love you, and you love me, and we want to be together. But we’re not fucking teenagers, babe: _that’s not enough_.”

“So what the fuck do you want, Tony?”

“I want to know that this is a stable, healthy relationship to build our lives on! I want to love you with my _head_ , not just my heart.”

“And do you?” Steve asked quietly.

“Before Staten Island, I thought I did. But I just chose Peter over you, Steve. I- frankly, I don’t know what that means for us.”

Steve took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, deep in thought. “Okay. You want to look at facts, right? The facts are, I chose to save Bucky, you chose to save Peter. We’re even.”

Tony thought about that for a second. A tiny flame of hope lit up in his chest. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Steve reached across the table and took Tony’s hand. “How did it feel when I chose Bucky?”

Tony swallowed down a lump in his throat. “At first, it was... humiliating. It felt like I had lost a very, very important contest. And then I was scared that I would lose you, and then- confused that I hadn’t. Confused that I didn’t even _feel_ like I had lost you.”

“Alright.” Steve breathed. With tears in his eyes, he plowed on. “One at a time- you felt like you had lost to Bucky. Can we fix that?”

Tony thought hard. “Well,” he said slowly, “I can’t lose a game I’m not playing. So, we could- we could accept that we’re both second in line here.”

“Can we?” Steve whispered.

Tony sighed. He didn’t know the answer to that. “At least it’s even?” He offered.

“That’s- that actually significant. We’re _even_. Say, hypothetically, we _did_ break up over this. What do our futures look like? We find other people, and do this to them? I know for a fact I’m never going to choose anyone over Bucky.”

“And I could never choose anyone over Peter. So what? We’re both incapable of being in healthy romantic relationships?”

Steve shook his head. “I refuse to believe that a person can be so fundamentally broken because they love _too_ much.”

There he was: Captain America, shining through all the cracks in Steve’s human imperfections. God, Tony loved this man.

“You’re still the first priority in my life, Steve.” Tony said. “But in death-”

“In death, we restructure.” Steve said with confidence. 

“In death, we restructure.” Tony repeated, hope growing in his heart with every word spoken. 

“Are we okay?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Yes. I can accept that.”

“So can I. So, number two?”

Tony nodded.

“Fear.”

“I was afraid to lose you to Bucky.” Tony admitted.

Steve sighed. “Tony, he’s my brother.”

“Yes, he is. I can see that now. I was wrong before. Before Peter, I didn’t really understand familial love. I thought that to love someone as much as you and Bucky loved each other, it would have to be romantic. I never loved anyone that much when I was growing up. But now that I know what it’s like to have- to have a son, I understand. Bucky is your family. It’s not just the love you feel for me, but less; it’s a completely different emotion.”

Steve nodded, smiling. “A son, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tony said, smiling back. “Remind me to tell you the story later.”

Steve chuckled and dropped his eyes. He was still troubled by something.

“There’s something else.” Tony said. 

“It’s just- when we used to fight about Bucky, it wasn’t just about jealousy.” Steve said, almost apologetically. “He’s- and it wasn’t his fault- but he’s killed people. He killed your parents.”

Tony nodded and sighed. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s a big one.”

They were silent for a minute after that.

“I’ve done some fucked up shit to survive, Steve.” Tony said finally. “How many people did I kill yesterday on the second floor of that building?”

“More than 10.” Steve supplied softly. 

“See? We don’t even know the number.”

Steve nodded solemnly. 

“Someone in that room was somebody’s parent.” Tony admitted. 

“Probably.” Steve said softly. “But is that going to be enough for you?”

Tony took a deep breath. “Before, maybe not. But ever since Peter, I feel like- it’s not that I miss my parents any less, but I have more clarity. I can understand the way they loved me. I can understand the things inside of them that made them act the way they did. One of the things I’ve been holding on to all these years is that maybe if they had survived, maybe things would have gotten better. But the way I feel about Peter- it’s an absolute. You either have it, or you don’t. My parents didn’t; that wasn’t going to change.”

“And with Peter, I can reverse their legacy. I can have the family- I can have the _love_ that I never could have had with them. And that’s- that’s healing enough that yeah, I can forgive Barnes. Bucky. I can forgive Bucky for what he did when HYDRA had his brain in a blender.”

God, Tony couldn’t believe everything he had just said was true. He never would have believed anything or anyone could bring him this kind of peace. Peter had turned his whole world upside down. How could Tony ever choose anything else over _that_?

Steve got up and walked around the table, pulling Tony up and holding him close. 

“And the confusion?”

Tony laughed and kissed Steve hard. “I’ve never been less confused about anything in my life. We’ve got this, babe.”

Steve was crying now, and holding Tony like he was a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. “We’ve got this.”

They pressed their foreheads together. 

Tony and Steve were on the same page now more than they ever had been before. They had fought for this, hard, and now they got to spend their lives in perfect step with one another, and with the two most important people in their lives. 

Tony, Steve, Bucky, and Peter were all home, safe, and together. And Tony and Steve were facing a long, happy life with one another. 

And what could be more critical or important than when Tony was facing life?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re reading this, thank you. Thank you for sticking with me while I wrote the first thing that I’ve ever written that has real value. Thank you for your kudos, your comments, or even just the tick of the hit count. Come talk to me on tumblr, let me know what you think. :) 
> 
> Tumblr: magicath-420


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